Catching up...

...Or trying to anyway. When life changes, it changes SOOOO fast! I am feeling really overwhelmed at the moment. Graduate school is proving to be more of an adjustment than I thought. It's just flat out hard! (There is SO much to read!) I guess I knew it would be hard, but I really couldn't appreciate just how hard it was until I started. Now I can see why people kept saying, don't have another job, don't get married, have a kid, or buy a house, in other words, don't have a life for two years. They really mean it!!

I know I'll get through it, though. I know I will adjust, it's just that it's taking much more time than I thought it would. It's really making me question what I think I'm capable of and what I think I deserve (I really hate that word "deserve"). It might actually be more accurate to say, what I'm worth. Which is really a good thing. I'm glad that I'm in a place in life where I can be asking these questions of myself. I think that, in and of itself, is a sign of growth.

I am sad that I had to quit my job this week. I will miss the people I work(ed) with. They were (are) so much fun! But, with the school workload being what it is (and being offered a position to work in the department, which is a huge honor) I know it was the right thing to do. I am so excited to be working for my professors, getting to know them on a more personal level will be a great experience for me. I will really benefit as a clinician from my experience working for them. (I start working for them next week!)

I have also received my apprenticeship assignment at the Clinic and I am way excited about it. So as some background, even in our first semester, we are assigned to a mentor who is working with a specific client, and potentially, by the end of the semester we may even get to conduct a session or two with the client (with our mentor present, obviously!). Then, our second semester we are assigned our very own client! So they kind of just throw us in the fire from the very beginning. It's terrifying and exciting all at the same time. In any case, I did some clinical observation hours over the summer and I saw a few clients in particular. Well, as luck would have it, the client I've been assigned to just happens to be one of the people I had observed most! I feel really fortunate to get to work with somone I "already know," and it feels even more serendipitous knowing that the assignments were all random! Yet another reason to feel like I'm in the right place.

Even though I go home some nights wondering how I'm going to get through it, I know I'm in the right place. I know that everything will work out because it already is working out. I love what I'm learning and I know that when I get through it, my life will be so much better because I'll be doing something I love and can be passionate about.