The Idea of Being

I was trying to fall asleep just a couple of minutes ago, when I started to think about the idea of being. By that I mean we as people being who we are - whomever that may be. My thoughts mainly focused around the idea of pigeonholing people. We like to think we have particular people figured out. For instance, I would love to say that I have completely figured out my husband. I believe I do know him quite well, but I could never know exactly who he is. And I wouldn't want to.

How could I not know after fifty years of marriage (when that comes) who precisely my husband is? It keeps changing. Yes, he constantly changes his mind, but I mean that who he is is always changing, influenced by education, interactions, experiences, opportunities, all of that. Furthermore, I'll still be discovering things about myself fifty years down the road; there's no way I could have both him and me figured out at any point in life.

Being in a counseling program requires that you learn a lot about yourself, as I'm sure I've mentioned before. It's been really easy for me to focus on the negative things I have learned, especially since I'm trying to improve my weaknesses as a counselor. Lately, however, I've noticed more positive things. I'm discovering new things about myself that have me a little excited - and surprised. It's not that these new things are so exciting in themselves; it's that I'm understanding myself better and seeing more clearly who I am. And who I am is someone who likes to know people

As I said above, we like to think we have particular people figured out. Whether it's the elderly church lady you've known for twenty years or the guy down the street that was arrested for drug possession, we think we know what to expect out of people. It's easier that way, isn't it? If we know who they are, we don't have to make an effort to change that perception. It's easy to put people in a box and throw away the key, because jumping in the box with them is just too damn scary.

The excitement I'm feeling about discovering new things about myself is worth the pain of finding out things I don't like. Thinking that I'm one thing and finding out I'm something else entirely is scary. I've certainly ran away from discovering things about myself before, and I'm absolutely sure that I'm not alone in that.

But I love being surprised. I love it when someone reveals something new about themselves to me. I love finding out that my perception was wrong. Yes, it can be difficult and disorienting, but to me it's worth the price of getting to know people.

I've always had this desire to blow people's minds. I want to show you who I am, but I really want to show you that I'm not who you think I am. I'm different. I'm someone who thinks everyone is different. I'm someone who relishes that idea and can't wait to see more of it. I'm the person that will punch through the walls of your box if I have to - if you'll let me - and let the light in. I want to see you.

Hello, New Blogger Interface

This is interesting. I like it. I'm sure there are a ton of Blogger people out there complaining about the changes, just like the Twitter or Facebook people do when either of those sites change things up. I find it somewhat amusing. Yes, sometimes things change for the worse, or it becomes incredibly difficult to find the button to do that thing you did just yesterday - but they're working on it. If they had never changed, we'd be complaining about that, too. We like being comfortable, but we also like the newest and coolest stuff.

Speaking of new things... A good friend of mine just told me about ohlife, which is this site that sends you an email each day asking "How was your day?" When you reply, it saves your reply as a journal entry. Obviously, this is not posted in a public forum; only you see these entries. You can have it send the email weekly, if you'd rather. My friend said that her sister used it with her new baby, which is just the greatest idea ever. I've thought about (when we have kids) taking a picture of the baby each day for at least a year. How crazy would it be to see the daily progress of your baby growing?? Plus, you can add photos to these entries, which would allow you to do something like that AND write about it. Sweet. I love it. Now I want kids even more than I already did. ;)

Btw, that link up there (and here - ohlife) is just for you. :)

Calm Before the Storm

So, my classes start back up tomorrow. I've really enjoyed having the last couple of weeks off, especially after that crazy five week semester with two classes. NEVER doing that again. I have never been that stressed about anything for that long. The classes were great, though; I loved both of my professors and learned a lot. That, at least, helped with the stress.

I'm looking forward to my classes for the semester. I have a family therapy class, Clinical Techniques, and Human Sexuality. This should be fun. Clinical is bound to be my most work-intensive class, what with all the tapes and case conceptualizations I'll be turning in. However, I'm expecting to learn a lot about myself as a counselor, which is both exciting and a little terrifying. We've been practicing, you know, with fellow students and role plays, but I know there's so much more to it than just discovering covered issues - it's actually dealing with them and working to improve them. We haven't done a whole lot of that yet. That's the part I'm most scared of but also most interested in. Yes, we can find problems - but our purpose as counselors is to help people with those problems, not to just find new ones or deeper explanations for already acknowledged ones. It's like one of my favorite lines from Grey's Anatomy from Christina: "You know, being aware of your crap and actually overcoming your crap are two very different things."

I have always been good at finding problems. That's not a bad thing, especially in certain situations. Nevertheless, finding those problems is useless unless something is actually done about them. Okay, you found it - now do something to fix it. I often get so immersed in finding the problem that I forget to find the solution. Sometimes, it's laziness. I find it easy to think someone else will deal with it. This is often because I think of all the ways I'm not equipped to deal with it. So I stop at finding the problem, talk to someone about it, then pray it goes away or gets fixed. If you haven't figured it out by now, that's a not-so-successful way to go about things.

Now, I just recently figured out the above problem with myself. The thing is, now I have to do something about it. Whoa. Now that I have a clearer picture of how I react to issues, I have to start DOING something to change it. This will take a while (as serious change always does), but it's something I know is worth working for.

Why Do I Ramble?

I said I wouldn't have time to blog, but here I am blogging. Deal with it.

I ramble like a madman sometimes. Oftentimes. How is "oftentimes" a word? I don't know, but I kind of like it.

Okay, so I don't ramble like that very often. That was what was running through my head, though, just to give you an idea of what it's like up there. If I'm ever sitting anywhere and giggle a little, I can guarantee you that 80% of the time it has nothing to do with anything going on around me. Or it may have started there but went down the rabbit hole to a completely different topic. My point is I have very random thoughts that just make me giggle with no warning regardless of the situation. If I somehow became a homeless person, I would be the one staring at the sidewalk giggling and talking to myself about complete nonsense. I do that sometimes now, and I'm definitely not homeless.

Sometimes I post things that make me laugh. These are things that I made up and thought made sense and were funny. Apparently, however, sometimes they don't make sense. Prime example: I posted a status that said something to the effect of, "This week is crawling by so slowly. Look, Tuesday just went out the door." Some background on this: It was Wednesday. When my husband got home, he asked what I was talking about on the status. I said, "It's literally crawling by! Tuesday just got out the door! It's Wednesday!! Don't you get it?!" He did not. At least, he didn't appreciate the humor.

I have a silly and random sense of humor. I find things like this hysterically funny. Also, I love Cake Wrecks. My husband just doesn't get it sometimes. He looks at me like I've lost all sense of reason. However, I should point out that he still thinks it's funny when I fart. All I have to say to that is: boys.

So...I honestly forgot what I was talking about. Now that I look at the title, it mentions rambling. Ah, yes. Now, I used to follow my train of thought quite a bit. I was fascinated by how I got from one subject to the next, because they would normally be completely unrelated. Once I followed that train, I discovered that it made perfect sense. To me, anyway. I connect random things. I don't do the following thing very often anymore; it probably lost its glitz and glamour. Or maybe the fact that it had glitz and glamour in the first place is what convinced me to give it up. I'm a tomboy. Regardless, I can switch subjects pretty quickly if I get 2 seconds to be distracted and hitch a ride on the train.

Talking runs in my family (*cough*Mama Jo*cough*), even though I walked before I talked and apparently never stopped moving as a child. The talking came later, probably somewhere in college. Of course, I still tend to keep quiet - until I get a pen or keyboard. Then I can't shut up.

Speaking of, I need to shut up now, because I have to run to class. Not literally run, I'm not late yet. Which reminds me, I need to get back to running...

So Much For Earlier Promises

I said I would try to blog more, and here I've skipped another two weeks or so. Oops. Furthermore, it seems as though I will have no time to spare in the next five weeks. Great.

I started one of my summer session classes today. I'm taking two classes in this five-week session. Each week I will have almost 17 hours of classes. I'm not sure what my other class looks like yet, but my first one alone is formidable. I knew there would be quite a bit of work, and thank God the professor actually cut down the normal load, but seeing it on paper was totally different. My other class shouldn't be AS bad, but we'll just have to see. Plus I'm doing part-time work, AND we're moving August 1. No free time for me until August 12.

Regardless of all that, this class will be interesting. It's Multicultural Counseling. Being from a small town in West Tennessee, I haven't had much exposure to other cultures. Therefore I look forward to learning a lot in this class. Of course, that involves a lot of reading and writing and discussion. Yay.

Anyway, I'm hoping some day I will indeed hold to my earlier claim that I would blog more. It's just probably almost definitely not happening in the next five weeks.

I'm a Slacker

Obviously, I've been a little busy. And a little lazy. And quite forgetful. I just haven't thought about blogging in a while. Because of school, summer, getting a small job, being married, and getting ready to move...yeah, not a lot of time to even think about blogging.

As for what's going on at the moment, my husband and I (by the way, still getting used to calling him that, but loving it) are planning a move to downtown Memphis. The primary reason is that my husband is starting law school this fall, and staying where we are would mean a forty minute drive every weekday. Can you say "Save money?" We were both a little nervous about living downtown, since it's quite different than anywhere else either of us has ever lived. Much more metropolitan than Akron, Ohio, or Huntingdon, Tennessee, for sure. However, we've been getting more and more excited about it and even wish we could just move there now. We love good restaurants, and while Cordova has a few, there are a lot of chains around. We prefer the smaller, locally owned places. Downtown is full of them. Chains are few and far between in the area (if only there was a Chik-fil-A...). Also, living on South Main Street means being able to walk to the majority of the places we want to frequent. Score!

Of course, Ryan starting law school means he probably won't have a ton of time to be walking all over downtown Memphis with me. I'm a little concerned with how busy we're both going to be come this fall and falling over into the spring. I'm going into my second year of my Master's program, so I'll have plenty on my plate, plus some part time work. Nevertheless, I believe we can get through just fine. I just have a feeling it won't be easy - actually, I essentially know that. Still - we'll be fine. :)

It's late - something I would not have said three years ago while still an undergrad - and I don't have much else to say at the moment. I can think of a few things, but I'll have to make note of them and write about them later. I'm considering changing my blog name, although the "random" part will still greatly apply. I want to write about more types of things, such as movies and music. And maybe even political stuff, although I'm afraid I would be an ignorant blogger in that subject. After I went to Girls State back in high school (give me a "Woot! Woot!" if you have any idea what that is), I had a much bigger interest in politics. I didn't care much before then. It dwindled and I lost track for a while, but my husband brought it back even stronger. Dare I say - I have become...a liberal. GASP! I have never claimed a party, and really I still don't plan on it; however, I cannot deny my leanings. I guess I can just blame my husband for making me stray for my small-town Tennessee roots. ;) Although, truly, not every small town Tennesseean is a conservative. I am aware. I just find it amusing in my own weird way. It's funny how you continuously find out things about yourself - whether they're changes or not.

Well, I said I didn't have much to say, and I rambled for another twenty sentences. Shocker. Typical me. Anyway, goodnight! I'll be back soon - I hope.