Intentions for 2011

First, let’s see how I did on my intentions for 2010:

• Experience and practice abundance. -Yes. I had more money than in the previous years and more love than ever.
• Be a spiritual and emotional guide for others. -Yes, sometimes to a fault.
• Be a loving and supportive partner to myself and my partner(s). -Not quite. I wasn’t always true to myself, and since I had two partners, they didn’t always get enough love and support.
• Take steps toward writing my first book. -Yes!
• Listen to the uncomfortable spot in my back and let it guide me to yoga or whatever else is needed to relieve stress. -Yes.
• Listen to my muses and create, create, create. -No. I really didn’t have time to create much this year.
• Continue to accept that I love coffee! -Yes.
• Continue to accept that I like to go to bed early sometimes. -Yes. Jeremy knows all about this even though he is a night owl, and he has helped me accept it.
• Get involved in professional partnership(s). -Hm, kind of? I worked with a business coach.
• Finish reconciling my new values with my past. -Getting there. I still carry bitterness and sadness about my past.

And now my intentions for 2011:
Love myself. That is all.

A Christmas Eve adventure with the Deutsche Bahn

I went to Cologne for a couple of days to celebrate my sister’s birthday with her. On Christmas Eve the plan was to take a train back to my parents’ house. We left her house at 11:30am to catch a train at 12:21, scheduled to arrive a little over two hours later. We figured this would give us plenty of time even if there were delays. Due to all the snow in Germany, there had been lots of complications and delays with the train system this week.

About 5 minutes before our train was supposed to arrive, we found out that it was going to be 10 minutes late. Then 20, then 30, then 40. It finally arrived about 45 minutes late. So far so good. We rode for about an hour and a half, read Asterix comics and generally enjoyed ourselves. As requested by my dad, we called him as we were leaving Hamm to give him plenty of time to drive to the Greven station to pick us up. Hamm is about 45 miles from our hometown.

A few minutes after hanging up with my dad, we stopped in a small deserted station. We were told that the overhead wire was damaged ahead and that we would be stopped indefinitely. People started exiting the train, calling taxis and arranging rides. Bianca and I kept reading our Asterix comics, unfazed. A good half our later we were told that the Münster station (our next stop) had no electricity, and that we would not be able to go that way. Our train went back to Hamm, where it ended. We were told to find out about our travel options at the Hamm station.

The Hamm station was overcrowded with people trying to get to Münster. We were told that we could get a taxi voucher, but there were no taxis. My sister and I started flirting with the idea of spending Christmas Eve at a hotel in Hamm. Finally an announcement came that all people trying to get to Münster would have to take a train to Dortmund first and then catch a train from Dortmund to Münster. So we got on a train to Dortmund.

The Dortmund station was also overcrowded with people trying to get to Münster. We kept getting conflicting information. Sometimes we heard/saw announced that trains would stop in Münster, then we heard that trains were bypassing Münster due to technical problems. Rumors were being passed among passengers regarding different platforms. First we thought a train to Münster was leaving from platform 10, then 8, then 21. When we were standing on platform 21 along with dozens of other people trying to get to Münster, we heard an announcement that the train to Hamburg on platform 8 was indeed going to stop in Münster after all. We ran to platform 8.

It was a nice high-speed train for which we didn’t have a ticket but we had been told that all tickets were good on all trains due to the chaos and delays. We sat in open coach and got to know some other passengers. The couple immediately next to us had been on the same train coming from Cologne that morning. We laughed and joked about the entire experience. We felt that it was almost over.

We stopped in another tiny deserted station shortly before Münster and heard the announcement that on the only track going into Münster a train had broken down going the opposite direction. We were stuck again for an indefinite amount of time. The girl next to us almost started crying. I was starting to get worried that we would have to go back to Dortmund again.

A young guy in the open coach went to the train’s snack bar and returned with 7 or 8 paper cups. He then took a gift-wrapped bottle of wine from his bag, and somebody else opened it by pushing the cork down with a key. The 10 or so people in our open coach train car shared a bottle of white wine intended for someone’s mother. It really lifted our spirits, and shortly after opening the bottle, the train started moving again.

We finally arrived in Münster about four hours later than planned. Now we had to find another train to either Nordwalde (our hometown) or Greven (another nearby town) because my dad didn’t want to drive all the way to Münster to pick us up due to icy roads. We saw that a train to Nordwalde was scheduled to leave from platform 11 in a few minutes. We ran to platform 11, but no information was displayed. Given the circumstances of the day, there was no way of knowing if the train was going to run or not. Then we heard an announcement that a train to Greven was at platform 3, ready to leave. We ran as fast as we could to platform 3. We made the train, exhausted and out of breath.

We called our dad to have him pick us up in Greven, where we arrived about 15 minutes later. He was late because he had had to shovel some snow with the help of some neighbors in order to be able to get out of the garage. We were finally in the car with my dad and my brother by 8pm, more than 5 hours later than originally planned.

Everybody was really glad to finally have us home. We ate dinner and opened presents, and it was a lovely evening.

An unordered list of my Germany trip so far

• Wow, there is a lot of snow here. I haven’t seen this much snow in my hometown since 1986 though I am assured that it has happened since then, just never when I was visiting.
• My dad commented last night that all my sister and I talk about these days is having children. I think he is both concerned and excited.
• I watched on DVD a German television mini series I had enjoyed when I was 12. It’s about a divorced guy in his 40′s from Hamburg who takes his 14-year-old daugther on a trip to Nevada, Arizona and California. His ex-wife comes along too, and the trip is fraught with emotional complications. The show is mostly about relationships and about the prejudices and reactions of German tourists to all things American. It has been fascinating watching this material now while remembering how it all made me feel back in 1988, before ever having a relationship or setting foot on the American continent.
• I found out that when I was little, my dad thought that I was the prettiest girl in the world. I know that most parents feel this way about their children, but I didn’t know before that my dad felt this way about me.

Yearning

My brilliant friend Wilja, whom I had referenced in this post a year ago, sparkled brightly again last night. She was asking me what had inspired me to major in Economics in college. She said that she was really surprised when she found out that that’s what I had studied. This is something I hear a lot. Even my parents confessed recently that they didn’t really know what I was thinking – a colorful, creative, subversive, progressive person like me majoring in something as cut and dry as Economics. I said to Wilja that I think I was trying to make my father proud. Even though he hadn’t asked me to major in Econ, he worked in banking all his life, and on some level I think that I was trying to follow in his footsteps so that he could feel like the money he spent on my education was worth the investment. Wilja then asked me what was driving me in college–what did I dream of doing with that degree? I said that during college I thought that I wanted to become a market research analyst: I wanted to find out what kind of new or evolved products the world was asking for. And then Wilja said “Ah, it’s all coming together now. So even then, you already cared about people’s desires.” And I had never thought of it that way before but yes: Back when I was in Econ major and now, as a holistic counselor, my mission has been to find out what people are yearning for. Connection made. Thanks, Wilja.

As I was walking home from the Castro, I had to climb a big hill. I had had a few drinks and noticed that the steep climb didn’t feel as hard on my body as it normally would. I was just sort of flying up the hill–breathing hard, yes–but it felt like nothing. My body felt stronger. That’s when I had the thought that there are two types of people: Those who notice and then decide that they want to drink more often so that they can feel strong more often. And those who notice and then decide to try to feel strong more often when sober. I want to know more people that are of the second type.

Some recent developments

I am applying for the Integral Counseling Psychology Weekend master’s program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). The school is practically in my neighborhood. If all goes well, I will graduate in the fall of 2013 with a master’s in psychology, and after that I will eventually become a licensed therapist (MFT).

A friend of mine commented today that I keep “getting sucked back into the easiest way to make the most money.” He is right, with Flash programming being the easiest way to make the most money for me. I quit my full-time job five years ago because I wanted to work with people instead of the computer. I still spend way too much time on the computer, and I don’t like it.

With this master’s degree I hope to finally make a fundamental change to the way I spend most of my time. My aim is to really commit and take responsibility for my path as a healer.

With the start of school approaching next fall, I am finally feeling some pleasant pressure to finish writing my first book before then. I have been thinking and talking about this book for over four years. I started working on it multiple times but always got discouraged. Finally I am absolutely convinced now that I have to write this and have written six chapters in the last two weeks. Even if it won’t get published, I have to write it for myself and for my future. But I have a feeling it’ll get published. It’s called Rejection.

I’m going to Germany for Christmas, and while I’m there I have a date with my very first unrequited crush (who is now married with child) to talk about what happened back then. Why didn’t he want my kisses? And last week I had a long chat with someone from college who stopped calling after sleeping with me once. Working on this book is making me feel more alive than I have in a while.