Trying to Help

Most of you dear readers, know that I'm getting my Masters Degree in Counseling, although I don't publicly post about it too much. I'm getting pretty close to the end, which is so exciting! I finish my mandatory coursework this August and take the comprehensive exam July 21st! (The biggest date of the year!!! Also the day before, is my best friend in the world's due date for baby number three) Basically, Comps is a big 200 question test covering 10 classes, so yeah, a lot of information! If---I mean when, I pass that, I will be doing Practicum in a School setting for Fall and then Winter and Spring, I'll be interning as a counselor, while also taking extra classes because I'm an overachiever that way. I will hopefully graduate next May, take the Licensed Practitioner Counseling Exam and get a job and get paid!!! Money would be great! Then after working for two years, I'll FINALLY be licensed!

Now, all this history, to tell you a story.

First off, I have learned a tremendous amount during my time as a Grad Student. I have thoroughly loved every minute of it! I truly feel excited to study and learn, while also learning about myself and how I can continually better myself, which is great for any person, but sort of mandatory to be a good counselor. I have learned so much about people and thrive on learning about the uniqueness of individuals and learning about how a person comes from an even more unique yet sometimes convoluted family system and how that molds each person as well. I have learned to feel the mantle of a "helper". I have felt that a person that truly cares and helps and has the education to help, needs to be genuine and that sense of love for others needs to become who they are. I have learned that I need to act like a counselor even when I'm not in the setting of counseling. By that I mean, act like I'm in the helping profession.

So, tonight I get out of class late, the usual 9:30pm. I'm starving. My parents ask me to stop by the grocery store to pick up a few things. As I'm in the checkout line there is a woman in front of me talking with slurred speech, sort of wobbling her body, acting flighty, speaking about how her husband left her, to a woman that I'm not sure she even knew. I'm thinking that she is probably inebriated. I see her slowly staggering while she pushes her shopping cart across the parking lot and I think to myself, one of those quick microsecond thoughts, "How can I let her drive under these conditions? What kind of person would I be to let her put herself or someone else in danger?" After that quick mental dialogue I say to her "Are you sure you are okay driving home?" And she looks at me says with her slurred, unclear speech "Oh, I'm paralyzed on the left side of my mouth."....as she walked away still talking about how her husband left her and took her car and the horses too.

At least I did my duty.