No this isn’t a relationship blog, but listen, there is no successful career where passion doesn’t exist.
Lately, my life has been nothing but Work, Book, and Sleep. Work, Book, and Sleep. Every once in a while, I take some self care measures to enjoy the pleasures of the outdoors, interpersonal relationships, and physical activity. But somehow in all of those things, I am not finding myself entirely engaged or free – I’m so determined to get myself on a path, that it’s living in my mind that those things are distractions rather than simply things I need to keep around me to keep myself sane. On tangent, yes, I’m an advocate for mental health care and mental self care. Get it how you live it, but make sure you don’t forget it or give up on it.
With ALL what’s pressing on my mind in these times, I am especially focused on finding myself and my place in this field. It causes me to chuckle how about 3 months ago, I was looking for a job – any job outside of speech pathology. It’s a long story, and as we get to know each other better, you’ll understand how much of a love/hate relationship I have had with this field in my first two years of officially practicing.
Writing and publishing a book has been something I’ve wanted for literally as long as I can remember. I have written fictionally and journaled about my life since I was able to hold a pencil. I have never been brave enough to share, so all of this is new to me too.
With what I’ve been learning about the publishing process, I’m realizing I am not too far off from similar lessons learned as a therapy provider.
Things. Take. Time. Inevitably. Uncomfortably. You don’t always have full control, and when you do, you lose out on the opportunity to take what someone else has to offer to your process.
It’s not all bad to take a step back and reconsider an original idea or design. It’s a growing and living being – a dynamic process. I don’t take for granted how getting used to “change” has changed my life.
Speech path, rather any journey you take on will be littered with obstacles you didn’t imagine. But also, you may not like everything as much as you imagined you would.
I have chopped, screwed, flipped, and bled out my original ideas of what I wanted from all of this. Me ten years ago, me today, and Me ten years from now, I can imagine will be three distinct personalities wearing the same face and petite body. At first, I would have been disgraced to know that I wouldn’t have stuck to everything I said I would, been mad at future me for getting distracted. Now, I seek out opportunities to get lost and wander in dark places, because no natter what I see nothing but golden sun at the end of the tunnel. I can’t help it, my faith is too big.
I say all this to say, Don’t be resentful of the process. It’s all necessary. Fall in love, not with the way things are “supposed to go” but with each and every step you take along the way.
Tattletales of a Speech-Language Pathologist 