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It has been a little over two years since I posted an update on here and truly, it’s long overdue. I apologize for that.

Grad school and life overall has kept me busy, between working and building a life here in the Bay Area. I’ve learned a lot about myself and what it means to lead a “good enough” life, both for myself and for other people.

Now that my classes have ended for the trimester and I’ve had some time to reflect, I figured it was about time to say hello again.

I am now in my third year of my PsyD program and getting my master’s degree has been no easy feat. Balancing the personal and professional has been a challenge in and of itself and there are a million ways I could tell you all about it. But I have to say, these past few weeks have brought on a new challenge that I wasn’t prepared to face.

Ultimately, these past few weeks have made me face myself.

Let me first recap you from the beginning. I have been working with clients since my first year of the program. In year 1, I worked with students from a continuation high school that were all from typically underrepresented backgrounds. They had their fair share of drama the way high school kids do, but most of them had also gone through a lot when it comes to family, trauma, financial difficulties, and so much more.

It was my job to support and help them through their everyday lives. It seemed easy enough at the time, after all I had been in high school only five or so years before them— not that they needed to know that information— and I could relate to them in one way or another. My job was to do my best to find resources and offer a space to listen, for them to be themselves. Sure, there were challenging moments and I still remember being cursed out with many choice words hurled through the room at me before having a door slammed in my face not twice, but three times… Nonetheless, there were good times and they were great kids. I still think about them all.

My second year was much different when working with adults. Even though I’ve been a legal adult for some time now, I still look around for the more adultier adults when something goes wrong. At times, I forget that the adult in a space may actually be me. So when I dealt with the themes of aging, serious mental health illnesses, grief, dating in the real world, and much more, it felt bigger than me. Some of these ideas and life struggles were things I had never been through, not in the ways that many of my clients had. I questioned what made me qualified to help someone else through it all.

Yet, we all found ways to work together. Eventually some of those I supported came to realize that the feeling of these topics being so big was coming from their own thoughts and expectations. In the end, my job of sometimes helping to break it all down into smaller, more attainable or digestible pieces did more than enough.

That brings us to this year, one in which I am working with a new population yet again. This year I am seeing disability impacted younger children and families. By the end of it, I will have the pleasure of working across the lifespan.

Currently, however, it feels less like a pleasure and more like a test of faith— faith in myself, my abilities, my humanity, and my learning. I’m doing something I have never done before and while this is great learning, it truly is difficult to go through the process of feeling new to the work all over again. Earlier this week my process felt a little bit like this:

“In the past few weeks, months even, I have questioned everything. It’s funny that just one person and a few hour-long conversations can turn the world upside down.”

I could tell you all about these internal struggles and reasons I have been questioning myself but instead, I hope that you see the wonder in those two sentences. After two years of new populations to work with and challenges to see, I am still learning so much within only a few months in my new placement. It is pretty cool to constantly learn from my clients. In the way I see the world and myself, I am growing and I am grateful for that alongside the growing pains.

And don’t get me wrong, there are growing pains.

As I said earlier, this path hasn’t exactly been an easy one. I’ve taken quite a few hard classes, picked a difficult dissertation topic, and chosen a degree that is not suitable for just anyone. The work I’m doing takes me into the world of other people and lets me walk around in their shoes for a little while, until those shoes are stretched out just enough that both of us fit.

Sometimes that world isn’t so friendly, kind, functional, or supportive. But it’s one that can get to some of these kinder and more productive places with a bit of help and a listening ear.

So, if you’re wondering where I’ve been for the past two years, I’ve been borrowing other people’s shoes. It’s a busy life, going to school or doing clinical work Monday-Friday and working in a coffee shop Friday-Sunday. But I’ve chosen it for a reason and I think just maybe, it’s chosen me back.

Moving forward, I do hope to update more often and talk about what this journey has been like because it’s a big one. I am either getting to know the struggles of what being human looks like— and trust me, it can look so many different ways— or I am helping people get through the day even if that means making sure they get their coffee with just the right amount of room for cream.

But I’d like to make you all a part of my day again if that’s okay with you. For now, I will say see you soon.

And happy Friday.