I’m sitting here in my apartment surrounded by lamps and candles drinking whiskey while Pink Floyd’s live at Pompeii version of “Echoes” is playing. The sliding glass back door is open and I can feel the cool breeze drift in, carrying the sound of crickets with it. It’s hard for me to imagine a more perfect moment alone.
These are some of the most valuable moments for a mental health professional in training like me. I need the time alone to recharge and to stop caring about others, as callous as that sounds. I help people all day: I do individual therapy sessions with clients at my internship and I am in charge of a peer tutoring program at a local high school. Someone always seems to need my help, and, as a human, I can only care so much.
I went to Walmart tonight and I could tell that my caring had run out. I had no compassion for the usual Walmart lot, the sad-faced townies, the bratty undergrads, the meandering elderly.
What I needed tonight was to get away from people for a while, listen to music alone, and just think. The thoughts are vague, worrisome, nagging, and not worth the effort it would take to type them out. They are the thoughts of the unimaginable terrifying hypothetical future and all its uncertainty.They are the thoughts of worst-case-scenario, the existential musings and appraisal of my life, work, and education so far and whether it has all been worth it in the end.
I have no doubts it will all be worth it once I have reached the end of my journey, but sometimes long days and dark cold nights bring out the thoughts we don’t want to think, the truths we’d like to ignore. I am not having second thoughts about my career path, but rather exploring my emotions regarding the steps I have taken. It’s a quiet reflection, a nod of confirmation. It’s time for bed.
Thoughts on Reserve 