This is a pot pie. This is a pot pie that I threw together when I got home tonight. Plain, semi-boring comfort food. I think what makes pot pie magical is that you can put stuff in it that you would never actually eat and when you combine all that yuck, something good comes out. This one is made with canned corn, canned peas, canned gravy, frozen carrots, and leftover turkey. The only thing out of that list that we might have eaten as food for its own sake are the frozen carrots. Although…I had planned to cook chicken later this week, and I think instead of doing that I will slice some “steaks” off the turkey breast and pan fry them with some seasonings. I do hate to waste food, and as much as I don’t care for turkey, it counts as food and so should not be wasted. And if you are wondering why I had all that food that we normally wouldn’t eat here, it was gifted to us, and I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I say “thank you,” and figure out how to use it.

In other news, I had to do some thinking today about how I am engaging with my clients. The answer was “from a distance.” This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I’m more distant than I want to be. Boundaries are one thing, and I have those, but this distancing is going beyond that. I’m pretty sure I know what happened. Many of you know that I had two patients die pretty much back to back unexpectedly, and then there was a thing going on in my personal life from mid-November until Christmas that was sucking up a great deal of emotional energy. I just couldn’t sustain all of that output.

Any profession that requires the use of self will be affected by the things that are going on with the self. But I added to that by neglecting my own self care. Now, self-care is a gospel I and most other social workers preach. To others. Mmmmhmmm. In my emotional exhaustion, I stopped arting, I ate crap food, I spent too much time on the computer, and too little exploring what was going on in my own head and heart.

In supervision today, I told my supervisor that I was having a hard time getting back in the flow. And she asked me what I thought was going on. And I told her I thought the deaths were still affecting the way I approached my people, though I left out the personal stuff. We talked about how having the split rotation with less time in the facility makes it harder to build good relationships with the residents. We didn’t talk about self-care because I didn’t realize I had let that go until I was driving home.

She assures me that my performance at work is still good, and that many social workers practice effectively at this distance. But she knows me enough to know that this is not how I wish to practice and that my style is usually much warmer and involved. She noticed that I was no longer stopping in the hallways to chat the residents up, so she knew I was no longer finding the work as satisfying. Damn, she’s good.

So what I need to do is get back to my people and to myself. Ironically enough, that easy way I have with the veterans is *part* of my self-care. By having less informal interaction, I was exacerbating, not helping, my problem. But I was also avoiding the actions that led to such a wonderfully satisfying relationship with the client who died so abruptly on the same day my personal life went momentarily to hell. I had tied those two events together unconsciously. They are not connected by anything other that temporal proximity. No need to punish myself and my living clients over things none of us had any control over. Some shit is just arbitrary.

Arbitrary does not own me.

Ya’ll know I go round and round on this one. I despise conspicuous consumption. And yet I love all the things. It’s a line I have a hard time finding. Because I can justify stuff like warm socks and leather boots here. I like cute things and I like functional things and I like dressing for the weather. But I guess it’s time to evaluate what I have and say ok, 20 pairs of knee high socks is probably enough, since I wear some type of nylons at least half the time and I do have the ability to do laundry. BUT, I say, IT’S BOOT SEASON and I will wear socks more often now. Still, I argue back, that’s THREE WEEKS worth of tall socks. But these had ruffffffles on them, I answer myself. See, round and round.

Now, when I add in the use of animal products, it’s an even trickier line. I can cut down on the amount of meat we eat, which I try to do. And lately I have been thinking about that even more as I hear my cousin Michelle saying, “Don’t dig your grave with your own knife and fork.”

But what I can’t do is argue with genetics. And my genetics say that if I put my foot into a shoe that is not made of actual dead cow or canvas, my feet are going to sweat and then they are going to stink to the point I can only take said shoes off next to a can of Lysol. And then there is the money part–non-leather footwear, once it gets scuffed, just looks like a worn out pair of shoes. Leather footwear, when scuffed, looks loved. So non-leather footwear has to be replaced, whereas good leather footwear can be re-soled and possibly last me the rest of my life. But, a cow died so I could have the boots pictured above. I don’t feel guilt for that. I need to be warm, and that’s that. I bought a non-color that will go with everything I own, instead of a neutral rainbow of pleather. But I do feel slightly guilty for not feeling guilty.

I’m a southern female. Guilt is my stock in trade. Today’s question of guilt balance revolved around the sweat-shop labor required to produce two pairs of plastic shoes and the CFCs involved in propelling spray disinfectant into those plastic shoes and onto my feet when I have at least one kid who can’t breathe around propellants and I have asthma OR the sweatshop labor required to produce a pair of leather boots and a dead cow. That’s today. But really, most of my choices revolve around what’s going to produce less guilt.

To wit: will the guilt of not calling my mom be larger or smaller than the guilt of saying something that will cause her to be angry and/or the guilt of biting my tongue and choking on my own rage? Will the guilt of not playing a game with my kids when I have done so 6 nights this week be larger or smaller than the guilt of playing but being so on edge I snap their heads off because I really need to spend the time getting my thoughts together for the week ahead and getting grounded in myself?

And why aren’t there any choices outside of my work that don’t involve guilt? Bleh.