Hi everyone. Here I am. Thought I’d give an update in case anyone still reads. I had taken the blog down for a while because I suddenly got paranoid about someone figuring out that Harriet is really me.

I started school at the end of March and I am loving it. It is nutrition school and I am training to be a health coach, even though I don’t think I can actually be a health coach. I met a bunch of nice people online and we talk by email or skype or phone or google video chat. I also met some women locally and we have gotten together for study sessions, as well as two workshops, one on Chinese Medicine and the other about Ayurveda. The workshops were at a school that is about 45 minutes away from me where they teach Chinese medicine, acupuncture, nutrition and other things. They also have practitioners there.

These women also like red wine, so most study sessions involve some drinking.

I ran a half marathon last month. It was at the beach, and my best friend has a beach house there so we went for the weekend. She was incredibly supportive; I’ve never had anyone take such good care of me before and after a race. We had a really good time too and met a cute bartender who tried to get us to drink shots. She told him that we had cancer so we couldn’t do that (cancer had nothing to do with it, but we had already had 4 drinks each), and it turns out he had cancer too.

Work is work. It was stressful these last two weeks, but we got some projects done so things should calm down.

Two weeks ago it was my birthday and mother’s day. It wasn’t any different from any other day. My mother and my mother in law sent me checks, and my boss got me a beautiful green scarf. A friend sent me a really nice card and a gift card for itunes, which I love. My boss and her partners (she has 2 now) took me out for Thai food.

The foster child that I used to advocate for graduated high school yesterday and I went to the graduation. Last month, the day before his 18th birthday, he was adopted! That was the best news I had in a really long time.

Therapy is continuing. It has its ups and downs. We have been going deeper into some issues, and we have had a couple of misunderstandings. I am too sensitive and tend to take everything the wrong way. Speaking of sensitive, last week I had a meltdown at work after my boss’s ex-wife sent a really mean email and copied the kids on it. After work I sent my boss an email apologizing and telling him that I thought I was coming down with something (which I was, I had a fever and I’m now on antibiotics) which is probably why I started crying when I read the email. He wrote back, “Or because you are a caring sensitive person who understands the role of a mother and was shocked by what she wrote.”

I really need to work on my defenses; I let everything get to me.

My latest plan is that I want to drive a race car. J told me about a race car driver named Alex Zanardi, so I started watching videos of him. He had a terrible crash and both of his legs were cut off, and now he is a world champion hand cyclist. After watching lots of videos of races, I feel the need to drive a race car. J told me he did it and it was great. So I’m looking into that now.

My marriage is no different than before. Maybe even more distant and disconnected. I am doing lots of things with my study group and my vegan meetup groups, and my husband is playing a lot of golf. My daughter is home for the summer, and the house is now a mess, but it is great to have her here.

I might take three months off of therapy beginning in September because my daughter is going to Europe for the semester and I want to give her money so that she can travel around. That $500 a month would really help. And I’d like to see how things go without therapy. My pdoc thinks the only way I am functioning is through therapy and meds, she obvious doesn’t think too highly of me. Maybe this is will show her that I can really function without therapy.

I was thinking this week about process vs product. When I was into knitting I really was a process knitter. I never really wore any of the things I made; I just liked to knit them, so that I could learn a new technique or try a new yarn. I’ve flitted around with various things in my life, because once I have the process down I get bored and I don’t really care about the product. Same with running, I love having a training plan, but the race isn’t as important. I think that might be what I like about therapy, even though I hate therapy. It is a process, a seemingly never ending process. There really is no product. Interesting.