"My Burden" or "My Job" or "How to Keep your Organs Inside your Skin" or "I Heart Wolverine" or "Maybe I Just Need a Hug"

Forgive me. I've been writing so much in my REAL journal that I haven't had too much of a chance to transfer my leftover thoughts here. Yea that's right, you get my leftovers. At any rate I was leaving work on Sunday after intense family sessions and was spent.

the thing is I can, at times, get fairly overwhelmed from my work. the truth is i rarely know how to write about it, i rarely know how to talk about it, communicating what is my experience in my role as therapist is challenging. please tell me that it is for you to? (this is for all my therapist buddies)

i was at the hospital where i work a few weeks back and i passed out while watching a patient undergo an electro-convulsive treatment for his depression. i've observed it multiple times prior to that occasion, but it seems i am pretty weak when it comes to witnessing someone in pain. this patient had a bad reaction. . . we'll leave it at that. so anyhow i had to go to our ER to get checked after blacking out. the professional diagnosis after checking all my vitals can be summed up in saying: I am a wuss.

it's true. once my mom had her gall bladder out and when i saw her with an IV i fainted. it seems i can't WATCH people in PHYSICAL pain. but i can sit all day and HEAR their EMOTIONAL pain. how weird am i?

back to sunday. i had just ended what was a 90 minute therapy session which was a half hour too long because the 2 sets of parents (heterosexual and homosexual sets-don't ask, it's much too hard to explain) had a very difficult time discussing with their rebellious and depressed teen the changes that are being made at home.

i finally stared at the wall at the nurses station, took what felt like my first full breath of oxygen, closed my eyes, and in visioned my heart beating so hard that my other organs were vibrating to it's rhythm. these are the times i wish i had metal criss-cross wired gates shielding my body instead of marrow in bones. but then Wolverine was sorta an outcast, so maybe metal isn't the best option of defense.

all this was less than 48 hours after returning from Latin America. a land where you kiss everyone multiple times, family is TOP priority, free time is spent sitting with people you care about, a place where people are together and affection is not with held, and eating meals together is an event. it is a place where i can taste contentment in my life con rico sabor.

i was on the "el" later remembering how the movie Crash begins. and i wonder how it is that families are falling apart all over the place. like enormous mirrors shattered so much the only reflections are sharp edges and deep marrings on the pieces nearby.

It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.