Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving was good this year although two of my siblings couldn't make it to mom's and dad's. Tina was off with her new fiance' and Marky stayed in California. We should all be together during Christmas - I can't wait. My mother is the best cook in the world. Although only four of us were gathered around the Thanksgiving table, there was food for twenty-four. I think I'll be eating leftovers when I go over to their house until we cook the next turkey for Christmas. However, I was again reminded of what a truly blessed life I lead. My family is healthy and we get along so well. I seriously have the most fun when my younger sister and I get to go to the movies together. There are so many days that I take that for granted, but at least right now I'm aware of the blessings and thanking God for those special people he gave me as family. The next couple of weeks are going to be rough as I finish off the semester at school, but like everything else in life, the end will come because it has to. Whether I'm ready for it or not, time passes. Thanks for reading.

Good weekend

The weddings of my friends are getting fewer and more far between, but I went to one of a college friend of mine on Saturday. It was good to see a lot of friends that I hadn't seen in a long time. Of course, there were the usual comments concerning why no one keeps in touch like they should and the questions about what everyone is doing now. It was all good. One thing that I love about getting together with old friends is that I smile so much that my face hurts. My cheeks have actually gotten sore from smiling so much before. That's a great thing to get sore for, am I right? So, friendships were renewed and I was reminded once again about how much I am blessed. To all the people that were there, I want to say thanks - you mean more to me than you will ever know.

Existential Crisis

Hello anyone who reads this.

I don't really have any idea about what I'm doing, but I think I'll give it a shot. The week has been kind of rough because I had a presentation to give in my advanced counseling class on Tuesday over Existential Counseling. It was horrible. I don't know if I didn't prepare enough or was too anxious or what, but in the middle of the presentation I looked down at my notes and became really upset as the thought occurred to me that I had nothing to add to what was on the handout. I was aware that the whole class was looking at me and, for an instant, I thought about leaving the classroom. However, I pulled it together (after my professor kindly inquired if everything was alright), and courageously finished the presentation. I've been processing this for a couple of days now. I tried so hard on Tuesday afternoon to keep telling myself that everything was OK, that I had an off morning, that my intellect was not determined by that presentation, but the feeling remained that I had failed. This got me to wondering when and if this feeling I had would go away or get better. I can say that it has. Not because I noticed the cognitive distortions that I was replaying in my head and changed them or disputed them, but simply because time went on and life went on. And I think that is one of the major points of existential counseling. Life is hard, but one gets through it somehow. I told several people about the incident. Thanks Emily and Ceceli and Gina and Yumi and Angie and Marc for listening, but nothing they said made me feel differently. Marc definately made me laugh and forget about the incident, but I still had to process it on my own. I'm still wondering if I'm going to be OK going back to class next Tuesday (I have another presentation). But I will do it courageously and know that sometimes life just screws you over.