D-Day 8: Sc/een.e from a Balcony 1-28-25 7:30am

 

    Just another atypical January day with temperatures in the mid 30's. In other news, today is the rest day of my weekend (Tuesday thru Thursday) and Friday marks the final day of employment in my field as a mental wellness therapist, as I will surrender my license, declining to renew as physical health decline mandates a reduction in attempts to continue "pushing the boulder up the hill"

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I began training for a career shift 15 years ago at the age of 57, when I returned to academia to pursue a new identity more aligned with my true values, my authentic self. My former career in music ministry no longer fit my ethics and I realized that working in a church with extreme bias, I could not support its bigotry and exclusive alignment with fundamentalist conservative values. 

I loved working with people, and considered music ministry to be 'social work', so shifting to a new identity and role as psychotherapist made sense. The use of people tools in the two realms: from one of suppressive conservative fundamentalism, to one that supported a liberation ideology. 

Between 2010 and 2015 I managed to complete a second Bachelor's (BSW in Social Work) and, graduated with a Masters in Professional Counseling, ultimately achieving all the requirements for Pennsylvania licensure.

I stopped tracking my journey in 2013 due to the sheer demand of working a full time job while going to school full time for 5 years, simultaneously holding another full-time job in social work as a geriatric case worker, additionally completing practicum requirements. All between the ages of 57 thru 62, and retiring from a 35 year career in church music in 2016. It was a lot! In retrospect I have no idea where I got the energy to do all that, and with accolades! 

The journey since then led to the field of psychotherapy, and it has been amazing realization of a dream. 

I'm hoping at this point to continue to fill in the blanks of what had not been documented, which will be a focus of time and attention as I cut from the usual social media form of self-expression at the end of this month, January 2025. 

Leaving the habit of scrolling mindlessly on Facebook and Instagram, virtually supporting the exploitation  of bazillionaire magnets of trump, bezos, zuckerberg and musk. I need to reduce my online footprint, which invariably targets anyone who engages with the internet system. After all, it's built on the presumption that one's data is never fully private, and thus open to advertisement targets.

So today's blog was meant to be more of a stream of consciousness ramble, and likely all future ones are destined to be since I'll have nothing but time on my hands, and I do like to use the tool of writing for creative expression; given our government structure is in the process of being dismantled, it's impossible to predict what the risks and protective factors are going into the next four years. 

TBC