since i've been gone (I can create for the first time)

lessons from summer school

Welcome to this tiny corner of the internet where an off-duty psychotherapist keeps the conversation going on how to make sense of this life thing we’re all doing. If you ever wondered what your therapist does off the clock—which, who among us hasn’t?—this is like that. Think of it as the adult equivalent of seeing your elementary school teacher at the grocery store picking out lemons. 🍋 I typically oscillate between long-form psychoeducation pieces and narrative essays—sometimes I smush them together. I also do a biweekly podcast with my husband, roundups and a segment of brisk thoughts on music, TV, and film.

One thing before we jump in, I show up very much as myself here. Myself first, and all my other labels are secondary. If a therapist speaking candidly feels like too much to your system, that is absolutely is OK and this may not be the best particular newsletter for you.

MDW in Chicago || Olivia <3 || Westcliffe & Snowmass Village, CO || first no-nap summer looked a lot like this

Moments after clicking publish on the newsletter where I mentioned I’d be taking a late summer hiatus, I felt space. It was suddenly so clear I wasn’t showing up as a very wholehearted parent to myself. I had become rigid and unwilling to hear from the softer parts of myself. 

As you’ll soon see the break wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows, in fact, I’ve only seen one rainbow since we last crossed paths. Singular. And zero ‘corns. 

Howeverrrrrr, as I recently articulated in a question prompted by the Editing Queen

Amanda B. Hinton

, writing is a wild, beautiful thing for me. I can’t tame it. I can only hope to jump inside it when it visits me.

I just got a visual of double dutch. I gotta take my shot when it’s for me and rest when it’s not.

Basically this time has helped me more fully embrace this

Elizabeth Gilbert

ism from Big Magic,

“Ideas are a disembodied, energetic life-form. They are completely separate from us, but capable of interacting with us—albeit strangely. Ideas have no material body, but they do have consciousness, and they most certainly have will. Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest. And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner. It is only through a human’s efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual. Therefore, ideas spend eternity swirling around us, searching for available and willing human partners.” 

Wild, beautiful things need rest, too. Because they’re tired and so they can remain wild, beautiful things.

I have some personal essays about loneliness, money, and motherhood (oh my!) ready and waiting in my drafts to come visit you soon.

Something I learned as I completed an intensive training last month on Internal Family Systems (IFS) was to honor the transition. So, instead of jumping straight into one of those types of essays, I’m going to practice this new lesson by easing. Honoring by slowing. By naming what is happening rather than acting like it didn’t happen.

It’d probably be less chaotic if I just wrote a cohesive essay on one thing, but that’d be so insincere of me. Instead, I have written about moments of reflection from the last month. Stay tuned next week for more on honoring transitions.