In nursing, there certain skills you learn to talk to people in a therapeutic way. I try to teach my students these skills each weekend (for 1 of my 3 jobs). Things like active listening, open ended questions, and helping patients talk about their goals instead of listening to you try to give them goals. Mastering this with patients doesn’t mean you master them in your personal life, but I will credit these skills with creating a less confrontational me and a more patient me in my relationships. I also have learned to not assume everyone’s problems are about me, which has been HUGE.

Despite that, I still struggle with relationships.

This year, when I returned from my glorious trip to Europe, I didn’t work for like a month. And then I got kind of scared because I am still paying for a kid and college and was like, ok, I need a job now.

And now I have three jobs. Basically. Because people don’t hire full time teachers for adults unless you have a PhD or are willing to work for $25 an hour. I know. No one feels sorry for me because I won’t accept $25 an hour. But I can’t. So instead I got 3 part time jobs to add up to a full time one. And it’s hard. Sometimes I feel like quitting. Or running away. And I started to feel trapped by my responsibilities. And lonely. And depressed. For no apparent reason.

So I found someone to pay to listen to my problems and use therapeutic conversation skills on me. And even though I would probably say the same things to a patient that she says to me, it seems to take hearing from her to believe it.

But it’s also pretty crappy. Basically I paid someone to open Pandora’s box. All of the crappy things that happened to me in the first 19 years of my life, that I thought I had managed to shove down a deep, dark pit have now resurfaced. I knew I had baggage, but I just remembered why I don’t like talking about it. Because it sucks so much.

Anywho. Here’s to being almost forty and still trying to figure it out.