Suddenly I'm Torn

Back tonight at Avatar Point watching the sun go down towards the Chuzcas, not quite making it before the horizon wins out. I love this site but am finding it makes me homesick for the ocean. I think it is by virtue of unobstructed horizon line panorama, looking down and out on the flat plane that takes my brain there.

Off this first evening of expedition, and I'm finding this week way more to my likings than last shift. I feel much more at home and closer to falling into a routine on the job. I hadn't entirely realized how being cold and not sleeping well affected me throughout that first week. Its a good deal warmer this week so far than last shift for sure, but the additional warm layer, winter sleeping bag, and pants with a crapton of pockets (hell yes JCPenny husky boys section) make life a whole lot easier to deal with. My new thermarest and super cush -5 degree sleeping bag make going to bed a bit of a joy and getting up for sunrise way less of a dread.

Theres an oil drum jam session going off somewhere close by and I keep loosing my mind adrift somewhere in juniper and pinon below. Its cloudy today, kind of muted and disconcerting. I can barely imagine this high desert in the rain, a strange juxtoposition of alien forces and not quite natural consequences.

I'm feeling very torn this week, for a lot of different reasons and from many different directions. First off I guess would have to be Dave. He finally got in touch Tuesday evening, and I finally forced myself to listen, hopefully in a more detached manner than I've been able to before. Talking to him made me angry, but different than it has in the past. He's doing better, not so depressed, but off medication and back on pot again so as to not demonized and alienate himself. I am pissed at him because it seems like such a ridiculous propostion--drink and smoke to be less depressed--but I think I understand where he is coming from. But for the first time, I'm not angry with myself about it all. I was proud that I was able to clearly explain to him why I was angry, how enmeshed I feel in his issues, and how much countertransferance I put on him, how much guilt I feel every time he goes down hill. I want to know more about countertransferance and co-dependency, like pathologically. Dave is definitly my model for it, but he's only one exaple of many, one relationship among dozens where I take too much responsibility and begin to personally manifest other peoples' experience and emotions. Empathy is a gift, but for some reason my compassion impulse goes on overdrive and is poorly controlled. I remember at 10 thinking my Dad got cancer instead of me, and feeling deeply at fault. Or at 13, lying awake all night for months because I thought Charlie could sense that I was awake and thus not kill himself because of that connection. Dave is just the lastest in that chain, and I want to know why and wherefrom.

I am feeling torn this week in the field physically due to the separation of two students from the group. We have Caren on directions (sort of an extended time-out) for the duration of the shift probably, and than Sarah just arrived new night before last still on Gateway. I'm finding it hard to speak only minimally to both of them, when I really want to nurture and make everything all better. I also feel fairly manipulated by Caren--I want to believe and trust her, but I know that I cannot at this time. I fear she is trying to use me, to take advantage of my ignorance to get away with things of which I'm not yet aware. We had a couple of good talks about why she's being punished and her anger, where I really tried not to take sides at all and just listen. I fear now that she takes me as an ally over the rest of the group and staff with which she still feels fairly conflicted. Particularly I feel used over first-aid priveleges. I'm in charge of basics this week and she is using my compassion and commitment as a cry for attention rather perpetually. I'm uncomfortable still not being able to fully trust the students, a feeling I'm still processing. But in the mean time I feel quite torn.

I'm also running into some internal conflict about being relazed and building rapport and wanting to be better on boundaries and rules with the students. This came up a lot last summer, and I know I feel better when I am more lax, but stuff also starts to happen when I'm not totally on top of things 100%. I am torn here in this setting because of the constant give and take from the rapport bank. I want them to like me and trust me, but those boundaries are so crucial to the girls' development...I haven't been here long enough to know where the balance point is yet. I fear being taken advantage of or being seen as weak if I don't enforce the rules that I see all the more because I'm new and the students don't know me well enough yet.

Torn, and pulled in so many directions, as I said.

We're laying over tonight for Halloween (!). Then tommorow and Sunday we put the girls out on solos, which they are not going to dig at all. We'll head back to base early Monday, then commences all of the turnover chaos. It seems so weird to me that this may be my last shift with some of these girls, either because they might move me next week, or because some might have gradded by then. Days with these girls really aare like weeks in terms of the experiences and connections you make here on fast forward. I will be happy to see them move on, but will think about them all often as my very first students out here.