When people hear about the work I do they imagine that I’m carrying heavy stories of trauma and hearing a lot of pain.  But actually I rarely have deep conversations with the kids. And except for bits and pieces I don’t hear the details of their trauma Instead the

Here I was trained with a master’s degree in counseling yet in that moment felt quite helpless.

All I could do was be with her.

I held her and cried with her.

I empathized with her saying, “You’re right. It’s so difficult.”

We are still working out the details, but we are thinking the wedding will be sometime between late summer and early fall. In some ways, it feels like we are starting our relationship from scratch as we have both grown and changed much in the past four years. And yet,

We talk about suicide a lot in my counseling program
When the topic comes up
I get tense
My heart rate goes up
I feel it in my gut
It’s

But had I been you
I wonder,
Would you have told me these things instead?

They didn’t believe that I was a born and raised American.

The first round of “God, please get me on this flight” prayers started from when I walked to the check in counter late, a mere 30 minutes before take off.

The funniest thing is that usually I think I do a fairly good job of washing…
Until I visit America.