New Year, Big New Beginnings

Today was HUGE. Today I went to orientation for Lindsey Wilson's L-town-Campus Counseling and Human Services Master's degree program. I'm finally going after the career I originally planned for myself way back in 1988.

Of course, being the procrastinator that I am, I put off filling out my paperwork until, uh, today. I've been thinking about this career change for years, well before Deat ever became ill. I just never felt I COULD. I actually began taking steps toward this goal in May, but I've been nervous about it. I've had the financial aid confirmation since July, but I still kept dragging my feet. Today, the deadline was looming, time to fill it out...

I was going down the form, merrily filling in blanks until I got to the last requirement before the signature:

VI. AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
Please attach a two (2) page type-written statement describing your reasons for seeking an advanced degree. Detail any areas of specific interest. Please include, to the extent that you are aware of them, areas of strength as well as areas of growth, both personally and professionally.

Okay, so I find this little gem at 1:30 pm, I have to pick up the girls at 3, and be at the orientation at 6. Two pages? I can knock that out. And, thanks to some help from Filly and kids (they came over early to help occupy my girls and to keep them while I was at orientation) I did.

A funny thing happened when I started writing. I just kept getting more and more excited. By the time I did the final edit, I was grinning like a maniac. It's really, truly official: I'm making my first major step toward a new life. I'm taking my first step toward new beginnings for the girls and me. I'm taking the very first all-on-my-own major step I've made in over ten years. Scary as it's seemed for these many months, it's really starting to feel good.

Also as I was finishing, I realized that this essay included some information I've yet to share with my readers. It may be a bit formal and dry, (or it may be a bit too informal for the purpose) but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

This is how and why I'm going to become a counselor, as addressed to the Lindsey Wilson office of Admissions:

My faith is integral to my decision-making process, making my reason for seeking an advanced degree in Counseling and Human Services is simple: God led me here.

I began college as a Psychology major in August of 1988, with the goal of helping people. Of course, I spent the first few years working on my general education requirements.

Up to that time, I had led a fairly sheltered life. I was continually taken aback by the life-experience of my dorm-mates: stories of rapes, abuses, losses experienced due to suicides or drugs, growing up in single-parent homes, or worse, homes with an abusive parent or step-parent. With my naturally empathetic nature, these stories haunted me.

I spent a year out of school.( January 1991-December 1991) During that time, I experienced a huge betrayal from two people I had been trying to help, was devastated by it. God used this betrayal to draw me, in my brokenness, to Him. My priest referred me to a wonderful therapist who incorporated my faith into my healing. While I benefited greatly from the few sessions I attended, I remained hurt and wary from the betrayal. Adding the betrayal to the previous experiences in the dorms, I feared that I would fail in my efforts to assist others. I worried that with my sheltered past, I would’t be able to “relate” to clients’ problems. I realized there would be times that I most certainly would not be able to see a patient through to “recovery” and doubted that I would ever be able to “leave it at work”.

When I returned to EKU in the spring of 1992, I took a selfish option: I left the field, worrying that this career would “break my heart.” I took a career-counseling course to seek a new field of study. My two best options at the end of course? Counseling or Advertising/PR.

I transferred to Morehead State in Fall of 1992 as a Journalism major with an emphasis in Advertising and Public Relations, and I enjoyed it a great deal. My “dream” at that time was to design ad campaigns for major corporations, however during my tenure as an advertising representative for the campus newspaper, I discovered a talent I had not realized: sales. As one of ten representatives, I brought in almost half of the overall revenue that semester. My only sales training had been listening to my father talk to customers in his Allstate office for many years, I couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t having the same success that I was. I believe the traits and skills that made me a successful sales person will serve me well as a therapist: empathetic listening, genuine interest and concern for my clients needs, and an ability to assess and gently offer need-based suggestions and solutions. Often during my sales career, I found customers sharing far more of their personal lives with me, a complete stranger, than one would expect.

After I graduated, I moved home to P-town, Kentucky and although I sought careers in design, I soon learned that the salespeople made higher incomes. In my quest for financial independence, I continued in media sales and promotions until after my marriage to Jerry (Deat) in 1999. Late that year, I was contacted by the National Federation of Independent Business with an opportunity that offered almost double my current income. In my desire to support my husband’s broadcast career, it seemed to be the best option.

The career change was fortuitous; in February, 2001 my husband was offered to return to a position here in L-town, Kentucky. My employment allowed me to simply switch territories to accommodate the move. Our older daughter, P.D., was born in September of that year. I joined the board of the childcare center we chose for her in December, and it was there that I met Traci, the director of the center.

Traci, like me, was transplanted to this area. We bonded instantly and became inseparable: calling each other multiple times a day, lunching together often, seeing each other through aggravations, hospitalizations, the gamut of headaches and heartaches. I had never become so close to anyone so quickly. One Thursday afternoon in June of 2002 I called her at work to say, “I just wanted to tell you I thank God every day for bringing you to me.” The next morning, she died in a car accident on her way to the center. Her 3 year-old son was flown to UK, but died about 3 weeks later, leaving her husband and 1 year-old son.

For the first month after her death, I was consumed with helping her husband. I then ran out of jobs to do, and crashed. This was my first experience with the death of a close loved one and I was completely confounded with the myriad of emotions running through me, highs and lows hitting one after another with no warning. Finally, my husband insisted that I seek counseling.

I researched grief online, and while it was helpful, the 3 sessions I had did wonders for me. I found in this instance, the value came from simply letting out my feelings. I could finally express all my pent-up hurt: I felt I couldn’t talk to my mother, it upset her so much to hear my hurt; I couldn’t talk to my husband, he not only hurt for me, he was grieving his own loss. My therapist didn't know me, didn't know Traci. I could rattle on to my heart's content with no guilt. However, in the final session, my therapist said something that cut straight to my heart, “You know what the real shame is? YOU should have been a counselor.” I was never satisfied in my sales career from that point on, but I felt powerless to leave it.

From here, the story fast-forwards to July, 2007. My husband’s kidneys failed from Lupus complications. I kicked in to high-gear as super-wife: keeping notes of every word from every doctor’s mouth (he had 8 different ones), requesting copies of every single lab report, keeping track of the 12-16 different medications on a database. If there was any question about whether the doctor had the best, most recent information, I spoke up. I maintained a calendar and attended every appointment from Somerset to Barbourville to the UK Hospital and at the end, to St. Joseph’s L-town where his body finally said “no more” and he died February 23, 2008. Several physicians commented during Deat's illness that they wished more patients had someone to advocate on their behalfs as I had Deat's.

That said, God used Deat’s illness to demonstrate His infinite love, glory and protection to us. God sent strangers with messages we would need to hear. Prayers were asked, and answered, often within hours. Many experiences we’d had in the previous years, experiences that had left us scratching our heads, “Why, God?” suddenly made sense in that the blessings we would need to help during that traumatic time were already in place before we knew we would need them. God even put the final prayer, one I didn’t know I could pray, on my lips at the moment Deat died. I’ve often been told I should write a book detailing the blessings as they came, one after another.

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for all God gave us during Deat’s illness. I knew God had a purpose; I wondered what it might be. A few weeks after Deat’s death, “God’s Call” for His service became stronger. I met with an internet friend here in L-town, and (similar to my initial meeting with Traci) the friendship immediately clicked. She felt like an old friend from almost the first minute and we quickly fell into easy conversation. Before we parted that day, she looked at me and said, “Wow, you should have been a psychologist or a counselor or something!”

God started sending those comments to me from all sorts of different directions. In the initial months after Deat's death, I quickly learned: while this is club none of us wanted to join, no one “gets it” like another widow. I took a great deal of comfort in talking with other widows, until more than one suggested that I would be a good therapist. Even my grief-therapist at the time agreed. I kept shaking my head, no.

In September, 2008, I realized that in my grief, the motivation required for a successful sales career simply wasn’t there. My priorities had changed. I took a desk-job here in L-town. Not long after, in the course of a conversation, the director of my two daughters' current child care, a dear sister in-Christ, suggested, “I think you’d be a really good counselor.”

Knowing she would understand the reference, I cried, “No! I don’t WANT to go to Nineveh!” A few weeks later, a friend at my new job dropped a brochure for this very Counseling and Human Services program on my desk as she walked in from lunch. The pull just kept growing. I’d find myself imagining how satisfying pursuing my original plan would be.

Finally, in May, 2009, I was fired from my job and my basement flooded twice in the same 2 week period. Financially, my girls and I can live frugally and survive for 2 years on Deat’s social security and with some public assistance. God removed any argument I had for avoiding this career option. I, only partly in jest, looked to heaven and said, “Okay! Okay! I’m going! I’m going! Just don’t send the big fish!”