Gone but not forgotten

It’s been 6 years, 1 month, and 15 days since posting to this blog. I’ve been gone a long time but you’ve not been forgotten. A lot has happened in my absence! I’ll jot down a few…

• I maintained a 5-year working relationship with one therapist that ended successfully and voluntarily.
• I bought my first home.
• I earned an undergrad and graduate degree.
• I adopted a greyhound.
• My babies from this blog are now 10 and 7.
• I’m gainfully employed.
• I’ve discovered new hobbies, kept old cherished ones, let some go, put some on hold, and have come full circle with others that had been dormant for many years.
• I’ve experienced many new things, learned much about myself, and made new friends. Yes, friends!!
• I entered my fourth decade of life.
• I survived deployment with a toddler and a baby…and thrived!!
• I moved to another city for six months, then moved back.
• I conquered my eating disorder and learned to control my anger.

Going forward, I’ll be adding various entries from my time away that I’ve journaled elsewhere in hopes of preserving them and include new posts from the present. We’ll go from there! I'll leave you with a quote I ran into this morning and an excerpt from one of the most important books of my life.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

"Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself 

any direction you choose.

You're on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go."

— Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss

Holy shit I won bitches!!!!!!!!! I have soooooooooooooo many things to say about my NaNoWriMo experience but, honestly? I've been writing for the past two hours and I'm kind of over it for tonight.

Floating around in my pool of euphoria,

Some chic you don't know

NaNoWriMo

I'll see you on the other side!

Just a couple more things I've figured out about myself...

A couple things I have learned about my decorating style. 
First, I like wood for wood.   I ran across a project book today on painting wood furniture.  While some of the projects looked "okay", I cringed at the thought of covering up something so beautiful with paint.  I mean, why?!  I love the way wood looks, smells and feels.  How could paint ever hold a candle to the natural grain pattern of wood?! Needless to say I didn't think I could actually go through with any of the projects in the book and therefore my thoughts on the subject were solidified.  I hope to get into old-fashioned woodworking in the not-so-distant future and build the simple furniture I need.  Stay tuned for that!

Second, I like black and white photos...black and white.  Maybe my intro photography class has turned me into a snob but I want black and white photos on my walls, with the correct size WHITE mats housed in BLACK frames.  My mother recently has put some of my black and white photos on my walls using blue frames and computer paper mats and while I am ecstatic to have my art on the wall and I do like the blue frames, the combination of it all is just not setting right with me.  Every day I walk by and remind myself that it must be done up to spec SOON. 

Here's to stained wood furniture and walls covered in correctly displayed black and white photography!

Just finished the movie Mooz-Lum and this song is at the end and I thought it was so beautiful that I had to blog it so that I could save it for later.  Enjoy.

Slide I want to remember...

This slide is from the class I'm currently taking on the history of photography.  The poem is titled Ozymandias by Percy Bysse Shelley and the photo is an albumen print made by Francis Frith of the  fallen statue of Ramses II in Thebes.  We talked about the combination of this poem and photo being a "poignant reminder of the rise and fall of all civilizations". ~Paul Karabinas, UNF
Anyway, I like this "reminder" because it is humbling and I like how it allows me to take a step back and once again align myself with the bigger picture of life--things come and go, things ebb and flow.  Life, to me, equals movement.  I feel that rigid mindsets can be fear inducing and that change, even though hard at times, is full of opportunities for growth and progress.  These changes can range from a career change to the imminent fall of America as a world power.

I love you Carl Rogers :)

So, I am reading Carl Roger's, On Becoming a Person for class and I just wanted to jot down a thought for future inspection.
I now know that there are many different types of psychotherapies out there today.  I think I knew this before but never really thought about it.  Now that I am face to face with it in my readings I have really taken the time to think critically about my three different experiences with therapy and the kind described in this book (client-centered therapy).  I feel much more inclined to this client-centered therapy in comparison with what I have experienced.  I am 1) interested in finding out about other types of psychotherapy 2) interested in seeing if they appeal to me as much as this type does 3) realizing that their is a general lack of communication to the layperson about which type of therapy/therapist they are experiencing 4) going to try to seek out a client-centered therapist when I return to therapy in the future.
If you have experienced therapy or wish to, I suggest checking out this book.  It not only gives insight into therapy from a therapist's view but from a client's view.  It has helped me immensely.