This Tuesday marks the start of a huge life change for me, I will officially start school. Actually, I am already in school, as this semester I am both a student at Idaho State University and at Lewis and Clark State College. Because nothing is more Kat like that multi-tasking.
So in true me fashion I am baking twice the knowledge into my mind!
Honestly, the origin to that story is while I was convalescing with my autoimmune plague for the last twelve weeks, I found myself wandering the web and spending a lot of time pondering what the heck I was going to do. Pivoting is a thing and I definitely have to pivot, I can't keep being so hard on my carcass.
That said, I need to have purpose and meaning and do that which I feel called to do, so after more than a bit of meditating on the subject, I realized that I needed to get back into the mental health counseling saddle.
Then I found the ISU Community Health Worker training program.
Through a grant through the HHS the program was offered tuition-free and after perusing the course syllabus I thought it would be a great dive back into the school realm. As a rural librarian I had already worn a bit of a community health worker hat, so I thought becoming certified in that area would be pretty cool.
So I signed up.
Then I got to looking at programs and found LCSC's social worker BSW. I already have a AA degree in lay ministry, and LCSC's transfer program accepted all of my credits. A few short weeks later I was all signed up and ready to go. Okay, there were a few steps in there, but honestly, everything has just flowed.
By my math, in five years time I will be a licensed in WA and ID clinical mental health counselor. But holy wow there is more than a lot of work in between this date and that end date.
You know what though, I am going to eat that elephant one bite at a time.
I started my CHW training last week, and more than anything it showed me that I am on the right path. 1/2 of my class are refugees who are trying to be bridges between their communities and their new host country's medical system. As I sat in my first three hour Zoom session learning about the class we were about to embark on together for the next thirteen weeks, I was struck by the enormity of what we are all facing in just the health care sector alone. We got a lot of shoveling ahead of us all for sure.
But here's the thing, I absolutely adore learning, and over the past couple of years of trying all the things trying to figure out where the heck my place was in this simulation, I got a bit, well, down. I thought that age and the trials of life had wrecked my capacity to absorb a bit.
A bunch of aced tests and quizzes later I realized that wasn't the case, I just needed to let go of things, rest, and focus.
My attention has been fractured and demanded all over the place for the last two decades, a very normal thing for parents. I birthed, raised, and homeschooled my children, I finished one college degree on the front end of that, I bought and built a homestead from scratch, arriving to it with nothing but two dogs and pickup with a blown up engine. I have been a librarian, a feed store clerk, a grocery store clerk, a Veteran's service rep, you a name it, and through it all I still absorbed knowledge like a sponge.
But, I got tired. Too much stimuli combined with the realities of aging eventually burn out the brightest bulb. (Not that I am too bright, if anything I would be slightly off color😁). It took two years of illness for me to get it through my thick skull that I don't have to be all or do all the things, I just need to focus on what I feel led and called to and the rest will work itself out.
So, with that said, I still intend to keep up on my blogging here in between homework and tests, because more than anything this place has helped me have the confidence that I needed to leap into change. I am looking forward to seeing where I will grow and end up, just as I enjoy taking in all of your journeys.
And on that note, I think I might go bake another pie before I get started on next phase!
