Reflections and new beginnings

As she sat in the dark corner of the yet brightly lit room she listened to the fireworks outside blasting into the sky announcing that Christmas was finally here. Christmas 2021 was long-anticipated and at the same time had snuck up on her so quickly she really wasn't ready. Her earbuds tuned into the sermon playing on her mobile phone, a sermon from a well-established and followed church that was miles away from her but was now vastly and practically infinitely available for her as well as the world to access anywhere as long as one could find a data source.  The internet was not new, it had been around for 20+ years,  but this past year it had been pushed to its limits with the pandemic shutting down the whole entire world, everyone having to turn to the net. She envisioned the net to be like a spider web blanketing the world the internet-connected everyone now whether it was wanted or not and social media conveniently provided notifications whenever anyone came near your space.

As she listened to the pastor she began to reflect on the past year, thinking of how the year had rumbled around her, a furious storm coming in throwing things at her that she was not ready for, no one was.  2020 was pretty difficult, she had begun a personal journey of reflections, revelations a bucket full of breakthrough processing. She had fought through many obstacles and persevered even though she had been tempted to quit more than once.  With a deep sigh and a stinging feeling of accomplishment she acknowledged silently to herself that in this past year 2021 she had managed to finally finish her associate's degree in Psychology that had held her hostage for a little over 20 years, she had also gone back to the working world, The previous year had been treacherous in a worldly view but she had been journeying for quite some time, In 2019 she experienced a sort of spiritual intervention when she began working at a well-known company a store she loved to shop, but every time she went to work she would find herself panicked and overcome with anxiety far stronger than she had ever felt before. She felt the only thing she could do was quit, so she did but soon found herself stuck in a mindset that wasn't at all healthy. Internally she knew the only way out was to go through so she vowed to herself that she would do whatever she needed to do so she could get on with her life. In reflection of how it all had gone down, she said a silent thank you to all the gods that had a hand in taking her out of the way of the pandemic even if at the time she felt that she was failing she was actually a step ahead of herself.

Thinking of her current employment she remembered the wretched rejection and heartache she had experienced in the weeks previous of her attending the job fair that led her to this current situation and she heard her past self-proclaiming that nothing happens on accident. Her therapist had given her a word of advice not to go to the fair because it may be overwhelming especially by herself, but she didn't head to her advisement and ended up getting a job! A job where she was needed and could help in ways many were not able and the job did need her quite bad, as the home help community had suffered from the pandemic and all the bodies they could find where needed. She had always been very attentive when it came to her work, making sure she was at work when she was supposed to be, yet recently she had been faced with seeing that lack of commitment from others in her field, and this along with experiences was giving her a sad sense that she was in the wrong place. She had been sent in the beginning to a house that was very volatile, bipolar and anger were abundant and often she felt that all the yelling would threaten to scramble her internal organs,  it was a bit more than what she was ready for on her re-entry into the working world.  They must have smelled the new blood she possessed in the job and remembered the video she watched at the beginning of the orientation of the caregiver going into a house and being like family, well that wasn't how it started for her. With a pat on her own back she gave herself approval that despite the rough start she was still in it, she was going to ride this out until a better option presented itself. 

She didn't have anything pending at the moment so she read through the 125 paged document which she had captured on the keyboard of her thin silver Chromebook that she had purchased for finishing school. A small sort of setback but this was one of the potential roadblocks that she had encountered because shortly after purchasing the Chromebook its software became unable to print anything unless directly connected to a printer with a cord. She had begun writing in this document over a year ago and she was realizing that it had been a year previous that she really began processing but didn't know what to do with what was happening. She wanted to read all the pages of what she had laid down but as she would read she would have more thoughts and would have to scroll down in a hurry to capture the things that had been sparked and often found she would get lost capturing more from the days of processing. After a while, she just wrote and figured she could come back and read later. 

For the past six months, she had worked in this job taking it very seriously and trying her hardest to be the best caregiver possible but some of the assignments especially after the first house made her uncomfortable and she often feared it would turn out bad. She was often anxious when asked to go to new places and one house she had gone to, the man she was there to care for really didn't need any care, just companionship and although she was one of the best listeners around, she was frightened of his stories and memories. He had told of his time in Vietnam and her mind went crazy with the possible stories she could have been overcome by. Sitting there in the armchair that doubled some nights for a napping bed she almost felt as if she could take on the world, she was starting to feel  She had been to a total of 8 houses, in a breakdown that meant she had barely spent a month with half of these clients and at one point this was a hard thing for her to take. She didn't go into these houses thinking of them as just houses full of patients; she went in to help these people as if she were caring for her own family members,  When they were horrid towards her it felt as if she was working against what she was working towards. It felt destructive, as if she was taking herself into battle but forgot all of her weapons for preservation.

The things that had been revealed to her in all these moments had blown her mind. She had been able to partially forgive and move on. She was able to realize why she had the tendencies she had carried around for so long and for some of the breakthrough moments she could go back to the when and why. This processing time had become somewhat of a job for her, a non-paying job that would pay out many treasures later, but the time it was a sort of volunteer position that was forced to happen. She had frequently heard her husband commenting on how hard it was for him to provide for the household needs alone. He was under constant pressure and had done what he thought he needed to do to get by and sometimes that created more pressure for him because he was creating more debt trying to stretch the funds farther and the elastic was fragile and cracked leaving more debt of destruction in its path. She just couldn't force herself to work. Looking at the clock as her fingers continued to jump over the keys she was over halfway done with her shift tonight.  Some nights the count down virtually killed her just sucking the will out of her, but she had almost trained for working nights all her life with her incessant insomnia that kept her up into the dawning hours of the mornings. Often she was awake until 2,3, even 4 in the morning, and sleeping during the day then wasn't hard, so why was it so hard these days? Although she was resting better since she had made a breakthrough and had found peace with the emotions she had tied today sleeping she was still on the fence about what to do in this job. Stay or leave she battled internally wondering if she was in the right place right now. She made a quick decision to continue to push forward, she would stay here until something better presented itself. Also, she was feeling ready to pursue her bachelor's degree and get moving on up into the world. She opened her email searching for the email that had the information on classes that could be starting soon and she began to feel a release of pressure and an abundance of what was coming to her in the future. She sat back in the chair positioning her arms behind her head for support and she began dreaming again. She was feeling it was finally time to move on, and that is what she intended from this moment on.