Working on carving me back into me.

My little hut on the mountain

OK, finally, I'm over it. The fog I've been feeling is gone. vanished. I was talking to a friend the other day about how social workers really do a horrible job of taking care of ourselves. Our lives, our work, consume us. Plus, I'm good at telling everyone else how to relax, but I stink at it. So, little by little, over the past 6 months or so, I've been feeling like my emo kids at school...I had the FUNK. And I couldn't get out of it.

So, 2 weeks ago instead of going to the desert to volunteer during my vacation, or to Disneyland with my sister and her family, I went to Cascabel Hermitage in Cascabel, Arizona. Yup, hermitage. On Wednesday, I hiked 1/2 hour up a mountain escorted by Daniel my caretaker, plopped atop a mountain mesa with two 10 gallon jugs of water, a table, cot, chair and tent ramada, and left to my own accord until Saturday. Daniel showed me how to use the "toilet" and said he'll see me down the mountain in 3 days. Bye Daniel! Oh, and I had 2 ziplock baggies of fruit and veggie juice that I juiced earlier for food. Yikes!

I went to the mountaintop and I worked on me. I was my own therapist, and I was my own patient. I can't say all that I gathered from the experience; it's wordless. It's more a sense that came over me, a feeling of calm and peace. I can say that what was wrong was big and complicated. It still is complicated. I thought I should be working on the Forgiveness thing...but I realized up there that I really didn't need to. I don't hate BF#2 anymore, so there's nothing to forgive. I feel bad for him mostly, and his poor new wife. I thought I needed to find better ways to relax, but I already know what to do and how to do it.

What I needed were answers to why shitty things happen to good people. Hard working, honest, good, real people. People who love to laugh, love to love, take care of each other, are nice to each other, smile at strangers. I believe that we become who we are in this world through our actions and beliefs and our own version of what it means to be good and honest and real. So, likewise, I'd like to believe that, through these actions and beliefs, we will be justly rewarded, by something, someone. I mean, I'd like to win the lottery one day. I probably deserve to win. And I'd do good things with the money. And most of the people I know deserve to win, too.

What I needed was not to feel burned out anymore. I needed to be re-freshed. Fourteen years of this work...it's long and difficult and I love it mostly. But I get lost in the details and I forget the big picture. So, I needed to get some grounding,

So, I sat, got super angry, I sat some more, I slept alot, sat some more, went on walks, and read alot. I think I'm getting there. I really didn't figure anything out or get any answers, but I came down the mountain feeling like the fog around my head has lifted. That's a start.