Forgive me, readers.

Sometimes, when my writing muscles go lax and my brain is occupied by other things, the existence of this blog drives home all the residual weight of having been raised a Catholic.

In other words, I feel guilty for not posting.

For the past couple weeks, my brain has been overwhelmed with input (reading, reading, reading and clients, clients, clients) and my time has been occupied by internship, work and what The Good Witch would lovingly call my "birth season," a period of time during which birthday celebrations are conducted rather than just a single day.

And also, I have been trying to make new friends along the way. Such as with The Florist. It's not like it's taking that much of my time -- although that woman can talk circles around me -- but I noticed with some alarm recently that almost ALL of my friends here in town are somehow related to psychology. The only one who isn't is The Clairvoyant, who's a massage therapist. But even with her, the lion's share of our conversation seems to be related to psychology, hypnosis, working with people and the travails of having a private practice.

So The Florist is rather sweet. She's a highly entertaining, somewhat crazy woman whose intelligence shines through despite the cognitive impairments she sustained from a bout of malaria that went untreated for a little too long. Most importantly, she doesn't know much about psychology or psychotherapy, so we don't talk about it very much. I tell her little stories about clients, to which she replies, "I don't know what 'psychotic' means, actually. What is it?" And then, I give her an example and she looks at me and says, "I could *never* do what you do." And then, that's the end of that.

I'll stop into her shop a few days a week and say hello, and she'll tell me a story from her life or her day -- colorful, amusing stuff with the delivery of a Southerner chewing the fat on the front porch -- and for me, it's like having a little escape because it has *nothing* to do with my school, my job or my internship. Her stories are usually funny and light-hearted, too, which stands in stark contrast to most of my other conversations.

It occurs to me how much I need to have people in my life who are not related to my future profession, if only for the sake of having a conversation with a "regular" person -- meaning: neither therapist, future therapist, therapist teacher/supervisor or ... client.

Most of my friends who recently graduated are living hectic lives and feeling the stress of trying to re-enter the workforce after having been full-time students and part-time workers for a couple of years. Those who are at the same point as me -- interning -- seem to be struggling to juggle internship, classes, family and whatever else they've got going on. And then, there are those who are just busy with family and school stuff or dating politicians.

Everyone has something going on. And it feels like lately, most of my "social" interactions have been composed primarily of these various and sundry friends telling me how stressed they are. One has taken to calling me about once a week or so and doing what I think of as a "download," wherein she tells me everything that's stressing her out and vents for a bit until she feels better.

I can't complain. I do that, too. But lately, I've noticed that it's gotten a lot more intense in terms of what's going into these ears of mine -- and that much less is coming out of my mouth.

I still have friends with whom I get to TALK, rather than always listening. But after the past couple of weeks, I feel like if I were to do a self-portrait at this moment, I would be mostly ears, between which would be three large eyes set in a triangle over a very small mouth.

Who would've ever thought that would be me?

But it is.

For the most part, I enjoy it. People say interesting things. It's nice, too, to feel useful for those who need to vent some of their stress. I really don't mind it.

What I am finding difficult, however, is having this existence without a release valve of my own at home. I talk to my pup a lot, but he's not the best listener. He's only truly attentive when there's food involved. I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to manage this on a long-term basis, but I have no idea.

The blog isn't cutting it, that's for sure.

I'm too tired to write any more.