It is 7:15 pm.

Today was another beautiful, warm, sunny day. I spent most of the day outside in the backyard. The grass is thick and new. I made a shady shelter for my dog and then worked on these old 1940's cupboards that used to be a part of the kitchen but got torn out and shoved in the garage when the kitchen was remodeled several years ago. I'm trying to remove all the layers of paint and epoxy and wallpaper and whatever else is on these cupboards so I can stain the wood to look like driftwood. I'll attach something pretty, maybe glass baubles or whatever, as handles. Then I'll take then down to my room and stack one on top of the other for much-needed storage space. It's crazy, this paint is stuck on there like gooey, sticky cement. I've been using this power tool that I don't know the name of--it's like a really hot hair dryer--I hover it over the paint, the paint bubbles up and crackles, and theoretically, is easily peeled off. Except it's not easily anything. There's this thick, goopy peach-colored substance underneath the layers of red, seafoam green, and blue paint that gets stuck all over everything and won't come off. So I'll try to just get all the regular paint scraped off, and then I'll use some paint stripping solution or whatever it's called to take the rest off (hopefully).

Now I am nicely sunburned and at the computer center again, supposedly here to work on my final application for the summer: ranger's aide for Oregon State Parks. I haven't heard from any of the other places I applied to and it's nerve wracking. It's like hurry up and wait. Haha, this meek-looking girl across from me just accidentally burped and got all embarrassed. She's holding her hand over one eye like people do when they're embarrassed. Anyway, yeah.

There is good news though: I finally got a job. I cold-called YMCA's childcare division, and after being transferred only once, I spoke to a young, enthusiastic guy who told me there was an opening for a teacher's aide at the Alameda after-school center and am I free at 10 am on Monday for an interview? So I went, and the interview ended up going fantastically! we talked for at least an hour about child development and the importance of creative play and how best to achieve a balance between freedom and structure. Near the end of the interview, he said, As long as your references check out, you've got the job. Yes! I should start working Monday or Tuesday next week. It's only minimum wage, which I expected, and only 20 hours a week, but he may give me some morning hours at a kindergarten-age center later. But yay! This is so cool. Finally I can build up some professional childcare experience towards being an au pair next January, and besides--I get to play with kids and do messy arts and crafts and read stories aloud, and I get paid for it. Good thing too--on Saturday, I quit my evil popcorn-shoveling job. It was so scary, quitting. I'd already called two times before that, intending to quit, but had chickened out and used the opportunity to talk to them about something else.

So now I work with YMCA. Wow, a place I actually feel good to be a part of. No, I am neither a Man, nor a Christian, but I am Young, and YMCA's purpose has changed a lot since they gave themselves that name. Something that I feel apprehensive about, though, is leaving this new job barely two months after I get it. I want to be loyal and reliable and all that, but I've got to take care of myself, and I need a better-paying job this summer so that I will have enough savings for my upcoming adventures. I hope that maybe the center I'm working at will close during the summer anyway, seeing as it's an after-school center, and then they'd only miss me a few weeks, and maybe I could even come back to work there again in September. That would be the ideal situation.

Wow, I am really sunburned. I like that the guy I've been in contact with at YMCA says, "Peace" instead of goodbye at the end of every conversation.

From age three to my freshman or sophomore year of high school I saw a counselor every week. Initially it was to work through specific trauma, but I just kept going every week, year after year, and she was this person I talked to about my life. I later found out that a lot of the time, over the years, when my grandparents couldn't afford to pay, she saw me at no charge. She said that this was because I was unusually articulate for my age, and she used me to learn about the workings of a very young mind, but I think she just said that so the g-parents wouldn't feel guilty about not being able to pay. When I was about mid-way through high school, I became so disgusted with the business of organized religion and the one-sided rules of my grandparents that I began to separate myself from all of it. And wrapped up in all of it was the counselor. So I stopped going. I still went a few times each year just to catch her up on my life, but I had distanced myself from the past, and she was a part of the past.

Last winter, when I was skipping classes at PSU and finally realized I was depressed and needed to get help, I sought a new counselor. It was the best thing I could have done for myself, and set in motion what got me to Alaska and started me on my current path in life.

The day before yesterday, I finally got in touch with my old counselor again. It's hard to understand how I feel about it, and how I feel towards her now, because she was such a huge part of my life for so many formative years. She knows that I went to a different counselor for the depression, and I don't know if it hurts her or not, but it feels like I cheated on her. I know that's silly, and that I have no obligation to her, but it's still how I feel. She was a friend, she supported me through so many things, and without her, I might not ever have gotten over what happened. She led me through shock, muteness, rage, and growing up afterwards.

I guess I just need to acknowledge her, and now I have.