Tennessee Bound!

I got my first choice, which just so happens to be in Tennessee, in the exact city where we hope to put down roots!

I'm excited, but also very sad, because it's now certain that our life here in Chicago is coming to a close. :( However, I know that moving back has been inevitable and I'm excited about the life we're going to build together there.

Wahoo!

Oh Where Will We Be Living?

This message provides you with your Match result for the APPIC
Internship Matching Program for internship positions beginning
in 2008.

Congratulations! You have been matched to an internship position.

Information on the specific program to which you have been matched
will be available on the Matching Program web site beginning at
10:00 a.m. EST on Monday, February 25, 2008. This information will
also be sent to you by e-mail on Monday morning, February 25, 2008.

Come on, already!

So, tomorrow is big day #1. It's the day when I find out if I matched to an internship site for next year. It's odd, because there are good things to come, match or not. If I match, fantastic. If I don't, then we're going to travel for much of the next year. The biggest disadvantage would be having to do this process all over again.

After tomorrow, then we sit tight all weekend waiting to hear where I matched on Monday. Boy, do I need to stay busy this weekend. I'm dying already.

Impatient, again. Am I sensing a theme in my life?

This whole internship process just takes SO long. Last spring, about April, I started look at the online database to determine where I would apply. Huge spreadsheets were made with all the contact info, as well as notes on what makes that site appealing.

Fast forward to July, when (during studying for my written comps) I revised my vita and submitted my recommendation letter requests with a tentative list of sites to my department. August was spent further narrowing and refining that list. September, October, and November were spent writing essays, filling out the 20 something page application, gathering transcripts and making psych reports anonymous, and photocopying and more photocopying, and more photocopying followed by spending a pension at the post office.

For much of late November and early December, I waited. Waited to hear about interviews, as I waded through rejections. For one week in December, I did nothing. Then it was off to interviews. I traveled for long expanses of time from December 28th through January 25th. Then, I had about two weeks to obsess with my husband about now we should rank the 10 sites where I interviewed. My neuroses kicked in and I decided that I almost would rather have my second choice rather than my first choice, because then I feel at least I didn't choose it...God, the system, and National Matching Services made my decision for me.

I enter my rank list of 8 of the 10 sites where I did interview, but then just before the deadline switch my number 3 and my number 4. Then February 6th ended, and things were left where they were.

So since that date, I've waited. The waiting killed me when I was wanting to know if I got interviews. Now the waiting is killing me, yet again. I had been pretty damn chill about all of these past few weeks, until some switch in my brain turned over yesterday. Now, I. AM. DYING. TO. KNOW.

So, on Friday, February 22nd, 2008, I will wait to see if I have matched. Then I will live every moment for the next Monday morning, when I find out where!

Then there will be a huge let down, I'm sure.

Glimmers of hope...

It has been a bleak and difficult time lately. I have more to do than humanly possible. There are classes that frustrate and leave me unfulfilled. Difficult and hurtful crappy situations permeate the lives of others whom I love. There are work relationships that make even simple tasks difficult. Clients have crises, push boundaries, or are doing good work that is still hard. My Granny is very very ill (she was in ICU on Monday until Tuesday morning) and in the hospital, while my parents, aunts, and uncles rally around her to combat her illness, unkind and neglectful hospital staff members, and their own struggles with the same brutal stomach flu. I am far away and feel helpless to support all of them.

My mother's church has the rumblings of discontent, some of it directed at her. In 10 days, my husband and I find out the fate of where we will be living next year, and then will have to face the losses associated with wherever we live. Marriage is rewarding but hard, and requires more work than not right now. I struggle with feelings of anxiety and depression amidst and seemingly endless winter that is more brutal and snow filled than I care to deal with.

But today, today was good. I am encouraged by how my family comes together during a time of crisis. How sacrificial and loving they all can be for the sake of a single member or the overall family. That my husband surprised me not only with a dozen roses, but with a card listing 100 reasons why he loves me, real reasons that one could only know after nearly 8 years together. Reasons that are idiosyncratic, intimate, and truthful. For friends who support and listen and laugh and love me, and let me do the same for them. Mentors and supervisors who invest in me and make time for supporting me amidst hard and difficult times. For making progress on dissertation and coming closer to closing a big chapter of my life in a way that feels rewarding and complete.

I am thankful for God, whose grace permeates even the darkest of places and the driest of deserts, and who knows of all types of suffering and sits well with me in it. A God who repeatedly welcomes me back, despite my continual betrayals and affairs. In this season of Lent, I am called to repentance and long long long for the joy of redemption and resurrection.