Friday, May 20, 2011

The road to becoming a “counselor”

To say that this week was a learning experience is quite an understatement. I feel as if the past 6 days has been 6 years. The things that I have learned about myself, about my abilities, about my limits… they are infinite. I come home changed. And I know this. I can see it in the mirror. I can feel it. But what I truly wonder is if they will see the change too. In my head this change is so drastic that I wonder how they could miss it. I wonder if they do miss it if they truly know me at all. But at the same time, I wonder without experiencing this with me how they could see everything that I expect is written across my face. I feel as if my forehead has been branded, but in a good way. I feel like the girl that traveled to dallas no longer exists. She is lost somewhere in the world, and this new person has taken over my body. This confident person, this insightful and amazing person that finally has a direction in life is sitting in this chair now. I always felt so lost before this. I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I went back and forth on a daily basis of who I wanted to be, who I wanted to be with, how I wanted to be, and who I wanted everyone to think I was. Now I feel as if this huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders and I can just BE. I can BE ME. And for the first time I realize that that person is not stagnant, that person will change, is changing all the time. If I was not changing I'm not sure what I would do with myself. If I didn't leave tomorrow up in the air, I just don't know what I would do. My whole life I have been dependent on other people whether it was my family and friends or my lover. Now I know that I can exist on my own. I can be without having to be anything for them. I think the thing that has come as the largest revelation is that I can overcome my past. I can overcome that 13 year old girl that lost her father, and her family, and her reason for living. I can overcome anything. And for the first time I can see that I can do that alone, but that today, I don't want to.

I think I miss him more than I've ever missed anyone else. I don't just miss him persay either. I don't miss his conversation, or his guitar playing, or anything he does for me on a daily basis. I just miss BEING with him. I miss those moments where we aren't doing anything. I miss the moments when all is quiet and all is silent and I can hear his heart beat through his chest. I miss how I make him feel, and how he makes me feel. He feeds a part of me that no one else ever has. And yet somehow, when directed into that happy place, that place where everything else goes away, and all is quiet and calm, his arms were not the ones I wished were holding me. I was torn. No happy place could be found because I wanted him, I wanted his comfort, and his presence, but somehow I wanted another's arms around me. I went back to a night not too far in the past when I could smell another, be held by another, and the rain started to drizzle ever so slightly, but neither one of us wanted to part. I don't know why this is. I've always been a big believer in the fact that I could not be in love with two people at once, but if I truly look at my life, and I look at where I'm at and who I care about, I am. I love him with everything that I am, but I have not yet let go of a love that I have had longer. It was his arms that were around me, his smells that overtook me, his presence that calmed me. It was his voice whispering to me that everything was okay, whispering in a voice that soothed and calmed, and brought me to a place where I could be free of the counseling world, and the distress that it puts on the soul. Can I be in love with him, and find my strength and calm in another? I feel as if this should be wrong, but it felt so right.

And I guess what I truly wonder, what I'm truly afraid of, is if this new and "improved" me will make a new decision. Will this new me not be satisfied by the path that I had started to nervously wander before I came here, before I grew into "me"? I feel as if the life that I had started to leave may not be enough for me. In saying that do I mean that I wonder if he will be enough for me too? I don't know. So here's to finding out. Here's to living a brand new life in the same old world. Even as I say that I know that the world has changed too. The way I see the world is drastically different than I saw the world before. Everything looks different, better. Everyone is better. There is strength in this world that I did not stop to notice before, beauty that I was not attuned to. This world never again will be what I thought it was. I just wonder whether that is something I should revel in or fear. Who will I be, where will my life go, if I am no longer on the path that I began to carve in the world?

Fear of the unknown is not new to me. Somehow this is different though. I'm not sure if I'm afraid of what I don't know anymore, or if I'm afraid of what I do know. This new outlook on the world is terrifying. So many new options now exist.

Getting caught up in the beauty of the world is terrifying in a new and exciting way.

So here's to finally SEEING, BEING, and CARING,

Jenny Leigh.

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