Starting this new gig on vacation

Ginger and I take our mostly-annual trip to Rockport, TX whenever we can squeeze it into our schedules.  On past trips I've whined about my divorce, laughed about the bad old days that we spent working together in the Houston chemical industry, or rested my aching muscles from doing too many faux jobs in a row.  I don't remember ever wanting to think about my "job" while in Rockport (part of Rockport's charm is that cell phones only work about twice a day).

So....here I sit looking out at the Bay, coffee and a big Texas-shaped waffle next to the laptop, typing away.  Maybe I'm having an existential moment because my best friend turns 30 today. (Happy Birthday, baby girl!)  I'm realizing that my new career as a therapist is not really going to be a "job".  I'm not going to be able to turn it off and turn it on the same way I've acted with other work I've done.  I suspect it'll be something I carry around with me all the time; a way of looking at the world, whether I'm in the therapy room or not. 

Why do I care enough to write about it, and why do I think anyone will care enough to read this?  For starters, I'm on this grad school journey with some awesome people, and I want to capture some of funny and thoughtful things we talk about. 

But there's a second reason.  I already have a way of looking at the world....a point of view that is very important to me, which I hope to integrate into everything I do.  I'm Catholic.  Joyously, freakishly, obediently Catholic.  My relationship to Christ through His Church is the most important relationship of my life.  Everything else comes second and, ideally, gets filtered through a Catholic Christian perspective on life.  Psychology isn't really excited about Catholics...there's some love/hate going on between the two.  This Catholic is excited about learning to help people, though. 

Lots of people have talked about "integrating" faith and therapies.  I don't know if that's my goal here.  It would be a pretty lofty goal, anyway.  I just want to get my hands and feet dirty in the idea sandbox.  And eat my State of Texas waffle before it gets cold.