missing the blog, part 2

I am still missing the blog. It's supposed to be writing therapy for me -- tales of how I am dealing with the cancer, tales that in the telling would help to lighten the load. And it absolutely has done that for me. Now that I am working hard on moving past the cancer, I feel unsure of how to use the blog.

We have a full house for the summer, and perhaps for a whole year, beginning this weekend: beloved first-born, 25-year-old T'ai, is moving back home from Boston and looking for work. He's been accepted into UConn Law School, but can't manage the $54K (!) out-of-state tuition at this point. He's also not entirely sure that law is what he's meant to do. He recently went through the fascinating career testing at the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation (www.jocrf.org), and he's off the charts in several aptitudes (99th percentile in analytical reasoning, English vocab, spatial reasoning and spatial relations, and more).

But what do you do when you were an English major 3 years ago and your aptitude testing says "you should be an artist" or "you should be an architect" or "you should be a doctor"? In terms of law school, the upshot of the report says something like "you'd love law school but might really hate law." Now what? It is painful for me to have him feeling so unsettled and stuck.

For T'ai, Laura, and me, there is a risk of frustrating each other this summer, list-followers that Laura and I are -- and absentminded-professor-in-the-rough that he is (in fact, professor came up for him over and over again, in areas in which he either hasn't studied or else has no interest). T'ai has an amazing mind, but agency and pathways are not his forte. "Find a job" is to him as "straighten out this Rubik's cube -- and no peeking" is to me.

I want to make sure T'ai feels more loved than exasperated with, to enjoy his good company and help him figure out where to from here. I want to guide him without shoving. It is easier aspired to than done. I've been invoking my mom's spirit a lot lately; she was very good at loving people exactly as they were.

Emily, my beloved brother's beloved oldest, has a year-long graduate internship nearby, and is also moving in this weekend! Emily, too, is really good company, but it will at times be a challenge for a 29-year-old to move into a different family culture, with her own routines (e.g., gluten-free) and ours (e.g., wash your dishes right away).

Beloved last-born Yani is home for the summer, working part-time at Nine West and part-time in the shower.

Hello, beloved middle child, Ting! Please visit often, but don't expect the washing machine to be available.

So we are going from an empty nest to a densely populated one, beginning tomorrow.

Grocery donations may be dropped off on the back porch.

And keep your ears open for jobs.

Part of me would like to blog about the adventures we are likely to have, this motley crew of adults in various stages of metamorphosis, but it has been easier to write just about myself because I can't step on my own toes. I'm already going to catch heck for the shower comment.

I'd love to write about my clients, about the practice of counseling itself, but I would have to so distort stories as to make the telling less useful for me. I would spend all my energy disguising identities. That's important, but might make the writing less fun, less rich for me.

And what do I do with the blog that was so alive from November to April, the blog that is buried in wires somewhere out there? Does it just corrode with time, and go down in my own little history as something I needed while I dealt with cancer? If the cancer recurs, do I resurrect the blog, call you all back to see if you want to listen in again?

I am open to ideas. Please send them to paula@paulachu.com

Okay, hair update in closing: peach fuzz on head, a bit in nose, two or three eyelashes. Yani and Laura tell me that I am not allowed to say "bare pud."