Month: January 2008

My life is a miracle.

Today I did something that I said I’d NEVER do.

And this is a big deal because, you know, I’ll try anything. Well, except crack, heroin, speed, ecstacy, bungee jumping, chitterlings, accounting, surfing, nipple piercings, you know…crazy stuff.

But today…I walked into an office, met with a counselor and I…

Registered for class.

I start grad school tomorrow.

I can’t believe I’m going back to school.

After my advisor ~Wow~ signed off on my registration form I had to find the registration office to turn it in and I’m wandering around campus ~WOW~ and I ask a woman for directions.

“Sure, I’m going that way, I’ll walk with you,” she says. “So, what’s your major?”

What’s my MAJOR?

What’s my MAJOR?

Wow. Do people still ASK that?

DAYUMMM! I haven’t heard that question in sooo long!

“Um…I’m in the Marital/Family/Couples Therapy program. I’m going to be a relationship therapist,” I reply.

“Oh, that sounds like a Masters program. Is it grad school?”

“Yeah. It is.”

I almost faint.

First of all, lemme tell you. I NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER in my long legged life thought that I would EVER be accepted into ANYONE’s graduate program.

I really fucked up my undergrad GPA. I’ve never taken the GMAT or the GRE or whatever those tests are ANNNNNDDDDDDDDDD I didn’t even apply until mid December.

I got into grad school in less than a month. ~favor and grace~ The process was sooo easy, ya’ll. Seriously it was. All I had to do was fill out a form, write a few essays and fill out the financial aid forms. Oh yeah..I needed two letters of recommendation too. That was the hardest part, but I got those in and all I had to do was wait.

While I waited for my decision, I spoke to everyone I could about what grad school was like and I even interviewed the professors in the therapy program about what I can expect.

I wasn’t so sure that my severe empathy for other people’s problems would make me a good candidate to become a therapist but I was assured that with practice, I could learn to leave other people’s problems at the office, which will serve me in business and in life.

But I see how this new direction will serve me in my life coaching and in my future as an inspirational journalist, speaker and self help novelist. Never heard of those types of books? Me neither. That’s why I’m going to write them. If you recognize a need, sometimes you can’t look to others to fill it. Sometimes, the reason you recognize it, is because it’s up to YOU.

So oh my gosh…I’m so nervous but I know I can do this.

I’m older, wiser and more focused about what I want to do.

So THIS TIME AROUND there will be no:

Drug induced sexcapades and orgies, no skipping class, no frat boys, no pregnancies, no dropping classes, no arrests, no putting men before my goals, no pledging sororities, no dorm rooms, no hanging on the set and absolutely no……

losing focus.

I will make A’s this semester. I will learn as much as I can in order to share as much as I can about personal growth and self healing. I will become a better person because of all of this.

Wow.

And for those who always said, “Damn girl, you need therapy!” Guess what? I’m getting it.

And I hope that we all learn from my life lessons.

I gotta go buy a notebook and some pens. I have class tomorrow.

Lord, help me and my future clients…..

~smile~

My life is a miracle.

It’s funny that a couple of years ago I could think of nothing but having the chance to give my gift of writing and inspiration on a professional level. I knew I had it in me, I just needed the chance. I guess I manifested that chance when I lost my job and had to seek employment in another city.

Through losing my job, I also had to leave my kids behind with their Dad or else be a bigger burden on my friend. I found jobs that I loved. I worked them hard. I don’t have them anymore.

I don’t have my children.

I don’t have those jobs.

I’m starting all over again with school.

It’s like I’m back at square one again with nothing to show for it but some increasingly bad credit. ~smile~

I wonder what that whole last year was about. What did I really gain from it? I guess I won’t know until it’s time though. I still do believe everything is divine and I’m trying so hard not to think that me moving to Atlanta was a mistake.

There are no mistakes. There are just decisions you have to make in life. The mistake would be allowing someone else to make the decision for you. When you do that, your happiness or dissatisfaction can and will be blamed on someone else.

I guess I’m feeling so nervous about this new beginning. I’m scared even though millions of people go to grad school. I just…was never good at college the first time. I don’t want to mess up, these loans are SERIOUS. I’ve never been this nervous before. I need to chill out though, it’s just LEARNING. I’m not dumb.

What do I want to happen?

I want to surprise and delight myself by making A’s in my 3 classes. Yes, I’m going full-time. All of my classes are in the evening and I’ll have my entire day free to work a full-time job.

I want my full-time job to be as an editor of an online or print magazine. I want complete creative freedom to plan themed features, assign stories and pay writers. I want to turn this publication into something that readers devour with every issue. I want to inspire. I want to inform. I want to entertain a little. Most of all I want to give new writers a chance to get their clips and grow.

I’d like this position to be salaried, full-time and a WORK-FROM-HOME job. Sure, an office would be nice to have. I’d like that, but I’d like the option to work from home most days.

This way, I’d be able to stay home with my sons when they are out of school and still be able to work. I’d also be able to have dinner ready for them when they get home and I can call the babysitter over while I’m in class those three nights a week.

I know I can handle this lifestyle. I really want it.

Come on Universe/God/Creator.

I leave this request in your capable hands and I thank you for delivering me the perfect circumstances to achieve my life’s purpose. If for some reason, my sons aren’t supposed to be living with me, then please give me peace with that because I miss them so much and it doesn’t feel right being here and not being able to be with them when I want to. I do appreciate their Daddy for taking such good care of them.

I want my kids back. I want to iron their clothes and fix them food and put them to bed. I want to drop them off to school in the morning. I miss that. I handled it before. I did it by myself when I was in college. I did it by myself when I had no babysitters and no BBDD to come and take up the slack. No child support. I know I can do this.

So I ask…

Believe…

Relax…

Allow…

Rejoice…

Hopefully…

My life is a miracle.

Tonight was my first night of class. I sat up in that bitch BLOWED because there were only like 20 people in the WHOLE CLASS! Soooooooo different from my huge university experience.

And…More than half the class were Blacks!

Damn! I never remember a single moment in undergrad when 10 Black people were in a class together at the same time. It didn’t happen. Even in a class of 200, it didn’t happen.

We all sat down and listened as the professor told us what to expect from his class (no tests, a few papers, some role playing) and then he read a bunch of articles and passed out handouts.

It seems that we will study different methods of therapy and learn to apply each method to our case studies and choose the methods we like best. Ohhhh…Now I get it! We study approaches that have worked for different therapists.

I remember the first case he discussed.

There was a therapist named Erickson, so they called it the Ericksonian method. He had a client who said she was tired of being alone and ugly and depressed and that she was going to kill herself. First he asked her if she planned to harm herself, if she had ever harmed herself before, you know just to make sure her threat wasn’t an immediate danger.

After he recognized that it wasn’t, he asked her what she didn’t like about herself and she said that no one liked her, she had never been kissed and no one would ever want to have a family with her. she hated her teeth, because she had a gap in the middle and she would always hide her smile.

Ok. He told her that since she planned to go down anyway, she may as well have one last fling with life. He told her to open her savings account, since she wouldn’t need it where she’s going and go out and have someone help her buy a nice outfit. Just one. Then get her hair done. One last time. Then he wanted her to go home and practice squirting water through the gap in her front teeth. She had to let him know when she could squirt it as least 6 feet. This excercise made her laugh but she did it anyway.

So when she came back to see him, she looked better, she wasn’t hiding the gap in her teeth anymore either. He told her that he understood that she was about to leave us but she had one more assignment, one last fling in life. She had to go to work and find a water fountain, when a man walked up to the fountain the same time as she did, she should fill her mouth with water and squirt the water through her teeth at him and then run away.

She thought he was crazy, but it sounded like an adventure she had never tried so she did it and the man cursed at her and ran after her, and then he kissed her. They started dating soon after, she got married to him withim months and a year later, they had a baby.

His method worked.

Imagine if he had tried to persuade her that she was wrong for hating herself. Imagine if he tried to diagnose her and then treat her illness with medication. In this manner, he agreed with her but subtly directed her toward living a more joyful life. What a great method!

It seems interesting…and doable. Tomorrow night I have Human Growth & Development, and Thursday I’m taking Human Sexuality. We’ll see where this all goes. I wonder what I’m going to learn.

Honestly, as I left the building I experienced a feeling that I recognized. I remembered it because, I felt like that the very first time I went to class in undergrad. That feeling of, “WTF am I doing here?” It was so weird. I guess I always figured that higher level education was for the really smart people and I never considered myself to be book smart.

Ahhh… I’ll get over it.

More pressing on my mind are these two stories that I’m working on. As I mentioned before I have published quite a few stories since I’ve been back in Miami and none of them I’m proud of. I was only doing it for the money and honestly I wish they had taken my damn name off the damn articles.

But I got paid. And I hope to never have to write just for the money again. If I can’t be proud of what I’m producing then what’s the point?

But these two stories aren’t on a tight deadline so I’m able to play and have fun finding great sources and then crafting the perfect angles and then…ohh myy..this is really turning me on…I get to comb through the words and suck on the verbs and…ooh…damn…I love this shit man.

I get to fondle the lead, caress all the grafs and just…enjoy doing what I do.

So an editor at the Miam.i Herald is enjoying me right now. I’ve pitched two stories and she loves them both. And I’m working on a story for another newspaper that is brand new to South Florida and I’m excited about that as well cuz the story is really, really interesting and the sources I got are really, really great sources.

I’m not nervous about writing them at all. I can’t wait until they are done. One of the stories is about the website Mediatak.eout.com. I have an interview scheduled with the editor tomorrow afternoon.

Man..on the real, the whole time I was in class, everytime he introduced a new theory I kept thinking, “This is going to help me sooo much in my writing.”

I don’t get as excited about doing therapy as I do when I’m writing or organizing a story. But I do love theories and philosophy and even today I learned that our brains are like…wired. It seems like he was trying to say, who we are has something to do with our physical brains.

That kind of blew me away. So he’s saying that men and women are just wired differently. That women are more emotional because we have a bigger *something* in our brains which affects our emotions.

What???

I have never heard any of this stuff before.

This therapy stuff is already affecting me. I need to go lie down.

My life is a miracle.

Yes sir, it is. ~gulp~

I just got back from night two of grad school and I am shaking.

We got down and dirty with this professor who explained the ins and outs of this profession. It’s a 3 year Masters program if you go full-time. But after the 3 years, you have to sit for 2 more years as a registered intern before you can take your exam to receive your license.

What I didn’t know is that once you finish your masters you can become a therapist anywhere. But unless you get your own license, you can’t open up a private practice. It seems like everyone in the class is going for their PhD. These people say that they love writing and research. Everyone comes from different backgrounds. There are teachers, a parole officer, an attorney and then there was me..the only journalist in the class.

My professor advised us to gain a specialization in something. When I asked what kind of specializations she is talking about she said, “You can be a sex therapist, a domestic violence therapist, a co-parenting therapist.” But she re inforced that we have to choose something specific because unlike social workers, we aren’t that widely appreciated yet and it will be tough to find a job if we aren’t specialized. One woman said she found a listing for a “therapist to the Redskins wives” position.

Yeah, that’s how specific we have to be.

Maybe I’ll focus on couples therapy. I really want to work with inspiring children though. I have three years to figure it out though. I’m praying for guidance. I decided not to do the dual degree in mental health and Marriage & Family simply because I don’t want to engage myself in therapy involving mental disorders, I’d rather work on relationships.

She also mentioned that our program leans toward a new approach to therapy called narrative therapy. It’s where the therapist changes the story of the client’s life to redirect their outcome. I don’t understand it yet… But she said it might be a perfect fit for me.

When I told my brother I was going to be a relationship therapist he asked:

How are you gonna be a couples therapist and you’re single?

Uhhh…I’m gonna study my friends’ relationships and who knows…I have 3 years until I graduate, I could have a boyfriend by then. It isn’t that farfetched.

There are so many other things that I need. I need my glasses fixed because I can’t see these words properly. I need to buy my books and notebooks and stuff. So I’m believing for a miracle in the financial department.

I have my first presentation in 2 weeks, a paper is also due at that time and all of my stories for the newspapers are due that same week. I have to get on the ball, get my sources together and write these stories.

On a lighter note, I was so nervous about my interview today with the editor of Mediata.keout.com. I don’t know why either. I’ve down plenty of interviews and I’m never usually nervous. He was so nice though. Extremely articulate and easy to speak with. He stands behind his claim that all of his stories are 100% accurate and come from reliable sources. He says he invests a lot of money into making sure the information he gets is actually true. I can’t find anyone to speak on his behalf but I’m I know I’ll get someone to talk about their experience with his website.

Life is becoming pretty animated for me but I am a psychic and I see straight A’s in my future, lots of laughter and a positive life change on the way.

Hey..guess who I saw in class yesterday? My childhood friend Susan. When she walked into the room my face lit up.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her as she sat down next to me. “I thought you already had your masters in social work.”

“Yeah I do. But I’m going for my PhD now,” she said.

Wow. I’m so proud of her.

I gotta give a big GET IT GIRL to Kim who just finished her MBA after going and stopping and going again. But now she’s done and she says the next degree she’s gonna get will be honorary. She’s always copying me. I used to say that I would NEVER go back to school because I’ll have enough honorary degrees to cover me.

Like I said, never say never.

Now let me do some research for my paper.

My life is a miracle.

Wow. It’s kind of hot in here, right?

So here’s the final day of my first week’s introduction to grad school. Tonight’s class, Human Sexuality, wasn’t too easy to find in the dark but I found it with 15 minutes to spare before class started.

I chose a seat in the front row and smiled at the middle aged female teacher who grinned back. Once everyone got settled she introduced herself as Dr. “Love” and then smiled at us.

“Pussy, dick, cock, suck, fuck!” she said. “If we are going to become therapists then we have to be comfortable talking about all aspects of a person’s life, even sex.”

I almost choked.

“Before I begin, let’s watch a video. It’s pretty explicit.”

She turns the video on and turns down the lights and we see a couple sitting in a chair. The couple takes turns talking about how their sex life has been pretty boring. Then the scene changes and it shows them in the bed together. he removes her robe and then removes his own. Full frontal nudity ya’ll! I’m sitting there like, OH MY!

He gets on top of her, we can see him put it in and he begins to pump, and pump, for like a minute. Then he ejaculates and rolls over to go to sleep. She’s left feeling frustrated and rejected.

The scene changes to them on the couch again, talking about a course they took that changed their sex life. Once again the camera goes back to them in bed. This time he’s taking the time to fondle her breasts, to suck on each one, to lick her stomache, her thighs, down to her feet, her toes. Then he takes a trip to her vagina and stays there lovingly sucking on her clit for like 2 minutes. NO LIE! I timed it! Two whole minutes we watch him suck her off!

I’m sitting there and my “insides” are churning and I’m like, “Damn, Gotta masterbate…. This is good!”But I’m embarrassed cuz there are 19 other people in the room with me but I’m in conflict because I’m enjoying what I’m watching.

They change positions now. It’s so good! She’s squealing and he’s thrusting and I’m thinking, “Get that pussy…Get that pussy!” OOh!

So my professor turns the video off and asks, “How did watching that video make you feel?”

A couple of hands go up. “Embarrassed,” one classmate says.

“Disgusted,” the girl sitting next to me says.

“Why?” The Professor asks.

“Because I’m a lesbian and that kind of thing disgusts me,” she responds.

I raise my hand.

“How did it make you feel, Tee?”

“Aroused.”

“Did everyone hear what Tee said?” the professor asked the class as they all laughed.

“Yeah, sorta,” someone else agreed with me.

We went on with the introductions to the course and the expectations for our papers (no tests) and group presentations.

Then she hands out a sheet of paper with next week’s assignment on it.

We have to bring in a picture of our family (from our youth) and then be ready to answer the following questions about our family upbringing.

My eyes filled with tears as I read through the questions.

Who in your family taught you about being a woman? How did they teach you?

Did you parents teach you different or similar things about gender roles?

Would your parents agree with your current views on gender roles? About your perception of what they taught you? Who would be more likely to agree?

WHo in your family was most comfortable with touching you? Who was uncomfortable?

What lessons did you learn about your sexuality and your gender roles? Who taught you?

I don’t know why she has to made this shit so damn personal.

I mean…who said I wanted to talk about all that shit anyway?

How does she know anyone taught me anything?

How does she know that anyone said anything to me about my gender role?

What was I told about being a woman? Ahh..That men just want to fuck me and nothing else.

That I was worthless and no one would ever want to be with me.

Am I supposed to say all that in class?

What the fuck?

What am I supposed to do?

This is some bullshit and it makes me uncomfortable…

This is some bullshit man…

I never tried to hurt you in any way. I wasn’t completely aware of how much my actions would affect you in your lifetime.

Please forgive me and heal.

I’m trying to heal myself too.

I’m sorry.

My life is a miracle.

And I’m so tired. I was up til the wee hours of the morning working on my latest article. This process is exhausting, yet invigorating. When I look at my article and adjust the vocabulary and analyze the quotes that I’ve gathered, I’m trying to organize them in a way that makes them get my point across. Along with succint transitions I’m usually able to accomplish this but I’m always nervous after I finish writing because I ask myself, What could I have said to make it more easy to understand?

I called my sons this morning to talk and they said they were doing homework. They asked if I had homework too and I told them that I had lots of homework to do.

These therapy classes are taking a toll on me because they force me to confront issues that I thought I had gotten over. I feel like I’m the one in therapy but I know it’s going to be okay.

I find it difficult to discuss what’s really going on in my mind because no one I know is on a similar spiritual path and when I try to discuss things like lucid dreams, energy projection and life after death my friends just pause and say, “Ohhhkay.”

At least I don’t get bashed for where I’m headed spiritually. Last night Kim was watching Joel Osteen and she said, “He really lines up with your beliefs, Tee.”

I laughed. “I like how you said that, Kim. ‘Your Beliefs’.” That was Kim’s way of saying that she doesn’t believe what I believe but she accepts that I am going to be me.

It would be nice to have someone to speak to about spiritual evolution and philosphies that are outside of popular Western beliefs. It’s wild though when I’m coasting around the internet and I find people who have experienced the same things that I have experienced but I cringe when I realize that they are generally psychics or some type of healer or something and I don’t know what to do with all of that becaue my Christian background taught me that these type of people are not of God.

I remember when I was driving one time in Dallas and for a few seconds I saw myself surrounded by a big ball of white light and energy. It was like a bubble all around me.

I laugh and I sigh at the same time because you can’t talk to people about these things or they will think you are crazy. Did I go crazy after spending all of that time alone? Was I crazy for doing all of that and making the choices that I made? Why do I question everything so much? Why can’t I just accept what other people say as truth?

Yeah I know..Black people aren’t usually into this energy healing metaphysics astral projection stuff. Sometimes I feel like I’m sitting high on a mountain and everyone is in the valley partying. I see their party and I want to have fun too but at the same time I want to be where the music and the mayhem can’t distract me from communicating with my higher self.

Do you believe in Angels?

I’m trying to. At the same time I can’t shake the contradiction that God is God and He really doesn’t need any help from anyone. Or does he?

It’s not like I have a manual to follow. Read chapters 1-21 and do everything it says and you’ll go to heaven in the end. I laugh at myself because it would be more easy on me if I went that route but…I’m more inclined to discover my path for myself regardless being led solely by my own intuition which can’t be checked and affirmed by anyone on this planet.

I wonder if you need validation from someone here to let you know that what you are thinking and believeing is the right way to go. Can you discover peace without following someone else’s lead?

It’s so funny that no one really knows the truth. Truth is always a matter of perception. Hey…that’s what my presentation is about for my human growth and development class. I have to do a presentation on how perception affects our behavior which is interesting because it’s what I have been studying on my own for the past 6 months.

I see death so differently now. To me, it’s not an ending it’s a continuation of who we are and who we are is a spirit encased by this physical body.

One of my old classmates from highschool was shot last weekend. He was a young police detective and he was found dead in his car.

Another of my old college friends passed away last Saturday as well. I feel like I’m being insensitive because I’m not really sad about it. I have this feeling that he’s okay and the family he left behind will be okay too. Is that wrong for me not to be grieving?

I sit and I send out vibrations of positive energy for those who were closely connected to the spirits that left their bodies. I sit and I stare off into space with a smile. I focus on the thought, “You are going to be just fine.”

I hope they feel me.