Fidget

I cannot seem to think straight or focus. My body aches and my mind feels rather discontent to settle on any task in particular. I feel as though I'm on pins and needles. Over the weekend my body has been screaming at me to slow down, but I find I cannot and so, get up to pace, stop the task I'm doing to pick another, or stare blankly at my to do list, not wishing to complete it.

Today I felt a desire to create, but not feeling any strong pull in any particular direction I settled on planting my pothos that had begun to root in water. Then I set about adding new music to my Ipod. This was about all the goal directed work I could manage today once I came home from running errands.

This morning I also felt the urge to travel and though I'm planning a trip with a friend in October, I feel conflicted about whether or not I should go. Mainly it's a financial question, but I think also this recent inability to alight on any one topic or idea for too long may be playing a part. After all, one of the tasks I have left is to look up train fares from Paris to Barcelona.

I think the thing that agitated me the most today was the realization that my inability to focus my creative energy was probably coming from a recent focus almost solely on my job. Now, I love my job-dont get me wrong, and likewise I have been able to take time out to spend with people and activities I enjoy, its just that lately I've let my work stress me out even when I'm nowhere near it. Ive been having the urge to quit and go elsewhere to do something different for a while, but some thing is stopping me. Whether it's a need to feel grounded, a need to feel secure in a job, or a need to continue to build connections here in NYC I can't really say. I'm not sure why I stopped listening to my inner self telling me to keep going, but I did and for a while it felt like it was because I needed to stop and deal with whatever it was I was avoiding.

I think in many ways though that need has been met and I still feel like something isn't quite right. I feel like I'm meant to do something more or something else and that I need to figure that out and move onward to doing it. I think that once I gain licensure it will be clearer and I wil lbe freer to look beyond what I do now.I've wanted for a while to work with trauma in varying places, but I"ve been held back by hesitation around the cultural relevance of westernized therapy in a non-western place. I just don't think it would work or should be done and I would very much like to be useful in other places in the world, but I seem to only have cultivated one or two things in terms of career options and I just don't know how to move forward with with them or from them.

It's not that I think what I've done with my life is useless or meaningless, no. It's just that its something thats tricky to apply to the populations I want to work with, without greater sensitivity and caution, and without knowing exactly how to manipulate what I do to best serve those people.The last thing I want is to be useless and more of a burden than a help, and how to ensure I keep doing that and doing it righteously is a thing that keeps me up at night as of late.

Being useful to others has always been important to me and I want the work I do to maintain that usefulness. On a microcosmic scale I suppose I can keep finding new ways of being useful to the people here and now in my work, but in a way I feel like I've hit a wall. Sometimes I think my students-some of them- would be better off in life if I never asked them to think about the things that are hard for them to think about, the things that touble them the most. I know that having someone to talk to can help immensely, and a fair amount of the time it does, but what good is talk if they've got all these other real life situations on their plate that they must somehow deal with? One of my favorite things about working at the shelter I worked at was when I could go down to the basement and help dish out dinner to the men. Then, at least, I knew I was meeting a direct and tangible need., I knew what I was doing was helpful.

Anyway, my point is simply that I don't have some need for thanks or instant gratification or anything like that, but I do need to see clear and tangible benefits for the person I'm looking to assist. At least more so than I witness right now. I think I just need a fresh perspective in a way, and maybe thats why I feel such a need to move on. Or maybe I'm just tired of urban work-who knows. Hope I find out soon, though.