this counseling thing

Rubber is meeting road as I get back into my semester. And I can see if I'm going to do this, I gotta be all in. All January, I am in this seminar, where we are learning about licensure, competency, standards of care. And today, we spent the afternoon on Dual Relationships. And all I can say is: buzz kill, buzz kill, buzz kill.

I guess I had illusions of having d'orsay shoes and a pin stripe suit and an office on Rittenhouse Square. An office with some fairly-traded rug and the most generous Chesterfield you've ever seen. And people would come in and tell me their technicolor stories, and I would come up with these brilliant and laser-sharp questions, they'd get better and I'd be thrilled.

I think it's going to actually be more like, I cobble together some internship at a borrowed office. I say five harried goodbyes in the morning (one bribe to take the violin, one promise to read Fancy Nancy, two runny noses, and one too-brief kiss from G). And then it's sitting in someone else's chair listening to story after story of disappointment, depression, chronic illness, and all the woe and malaise that can be imagined. The counseling hour will pass like molasses, the box of tissue will be expended and if I get to say anything, it might be an anemic little line of questions.

I know it's important to have my illusions properly disassembled. I got to laugh a lot at lunch with a bunch of women who were like: Licensure, I don't know! I think I might use my degree just to be a better wife to my husband! Or another woman who is trying so bravely to try and start a counseling center in the East Village. She is the age I was when I was making sandwiches in the deli at Harvest Co-op. Such a range, and it actually feels okay to not know exactly how this is going to look when I 'm done.

What keeps me real is to come home and describe this work to Geoff. We marvel at the high-level of accountability that counseling will require. Today we were told that sexual misconduct is an occupational hazard. In the exchange of intense, emotional stuff, and the work of communicating and understanding people, statistically it is simply the truth about counseling. And how to guard against it, tons of accountability, tons of prayer. I know our families are going to be like, "Oh, great. Mia and Geoff-- can they get more serious and intense and disgustingly honest?" But I guess I have to ask, don't we all want to take each other's occupational hazards and learn from them? Who says it's a bad thing to be cautious about litigation, malpractice, or even informally students who grade-grub?

Also, it keeps it real to come home and talk to the kids about what I'm doing. I think it will be important that they understand this process: I have to do the reading even if I can't get through one without drooling pools. I have to write good papers even if it means I can only sled for a short time. This week has been a demonstration in these things. And yet, each day, was full of gracious surprises.