The Restorative Power of Random Interactions in One's Technetium Year
It has been a weirdly painful week in spite of an environment of amazing work happening around me, and, indeed, including me. I feel like the depth of my emotions has been in a lead cauldron since late last November and life has been occasionally maudlin but mostly copacetic, peaceful and productive at the very least. My power to create safe space for myself and refrain from self sabotage has been unparalelled. Until a couple weeks ago when i let my guard down. The verdict is, I'm not fucking ready for that shit. I am swimming in things which prevent me from focusing on everything that I'm capable of doing to realize some effectiveness, beauty, meaning, or power in this world. Somehow I can't pull myself out of a remedial level of emotional complication long enough to be present for the rest of the world. My decently effective self care is not unconditional and I'm going back in to the lead cauldron for a couple more weeks or months, until I can wrap some things around some other things a little better. Temperance card carry me through the rest of my technetium year, please.
On the way from dropping a friend off after the, ultimately good, Nurses for Social Justice retreat I stopped at the Aldi to get Ice cream and berries to bring to a client currently at a care facility very close to where I'd dropped my friend off. The guy in front of me in line was conversing with the clerk in Spanish, trying to figure out if he could borrow a cart for a few blocks or at least leave items at the counter so he could walk back and forth, because he couldn't carry everything at once. On my way out i asked him where he was going and offered him a ride, which he accepted. He tolerated my mediocre Spanish gracefully and then told me he was from a town in Guatemala not far from where i had visited. I rarely meet Guatemalans in Chicago, and he perked up when he realized i knew his region, so it was a sweet reminder that putting yourself out to a stranger is sometimes the best idea, regardless what my stupid culture tells me.
As for the client who i visited on my day off with treats, yeah yeah yeah, professional boundaries, blah blah blah, fuck off. The more i talked it through with my friend the more i realized i did not so much feel guilted or pressured to do it, but knew I'd feel much better if I just took advantage of my proximity and saw this person. I really do feel an inordinate amount of inexplicable unconditional something for this individual, probably because they have not gotten their share in this lifetime. Maybe in my Technetium year, besides random interactions, honoring my clients is the best way for me to maintain my quota of human contact.
On the way from dropping a friend off after the, ultimately good, Nurses for Social Justice retreat I stopped at the Aldi to get Ice cream and berries to bring to a client currently at a care facility very close to where I'd dropped my friend off. The guy in front of me in line was conversing with the clerk in Spanish, trying to figure out if he could borrow a cart for a few blocks or at least leave items at the counter so he could walk back and forth, because he couldn't carry everything at once. On my way out i asked him where he was going and offered him a ride, which he accepted. He tolerated my mediocre Spanish gracefully and then told me he was from a town in Guatemala not far from where i had visited. I rarely meet Guatemalans in Chicago, and he perked up when he realized i knew his region, so it was a sweet reminder that putting yourself out to a stranger is sometimes the best idea, regardless what my stupid culture tells me.
As for the client who i visited on my day off with treats, yeah yeah yeah, professional boundaries, blah blah blah, fuck off. The more i talked it through with my friend the more i realized i did not so much feel guilted or pressured to do it, but knew I'd feel much better if I just took advantage of my proximity and saw this person. I really do feel an inordinate amount of inexplicable unconditional something for this individual, probably because they have not gotten their share in this lifetime. Maybe in my Technetium year, besides random interactions, honoring my clients is the best way for me to maintain my quota of human contact.