The Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee homes

Chapter 4:

 I lived and worked where?

Myrtle Beach, SC - First job after grad school was as a secretary in a child psychologist's office, where I might have eventually had the opportunity to give play therapy. It was hard transcribing the psychologist's notes since she had a heavy accent.  We lived in a nice town house, walking distance of the beach.    I did enjoy being in the neighborhood of a Spiritual Center for Meher Baba, an Indian man who took a vow of silence, but managed to make many wise statements through his teachings. (He first said "Don't worry, be happy.") For more information about the Meher Baba Spiritual Center check out here.

Lumberton, NC (photo below) - We lived in a sweet little house in a small town. I'd had had another offer before taking the Myrtle Beach job, and I called to see if the Workshop Coordinator job was still available.  It was and we lived there a couple of years. I loved working with folks with a mental illness, who wanted not only to have something to occupy their days, but to make friends and even have jobs.

(Post script: this little town just got flooded (inundated) following Hurricane Matthew in Oct. The main north south highway I-95 has been closed for over a week from this. I hope all the people who live there will be able to pick up their lives after the huge clean-up.  I wrote this before the storm.)

Youngest son's first snow in Lumberton, NC

Laurinberg, NC - Another job change, and moving to a nearby town.  We lived in another townhouse apartment. I continued to use many of the skills from my Counseling graduate degrees, but I felt like I'd never get to do mental health counseling as it was done by Social Workers in North Carolina. The U of FL Counselor Education graduate degrees in Mental Health didn't seem to be recognized there yet.

Youngest son (on left) playing one of our favorite board games with friends on our front stoop.

Poplar Pointe, Atlanta, GA - I finally got a position doing substance abuse counseling. We lived in a very nice apartment, in a predominantly black neighborhood. My son was one of 2 kids who were white in his 6th grade class, a cultural difference still in the 90s, especially in Georgia. My second son also lived in Atlanta, so there were frequent visits though he was starting his career and had a serious girlfriend to keep him busy.

 There's one of the cats on the downstairs screened porch of our apartment, behind my car.

Creekside La, Knoxville, TN - Another job opportunity...to develop and run a program for co-dependency, in conjunction with a substance abuse program. Unfortunately the insurance companies didn't reimburse us for co-dependency treatment, though it seemed to be helping people. So I went back to substance abuse counseling.  My career required me to move around, which sure hadn't been my original plan when I got my graduate degrees.  I wanted to do art therapy, and never did. We lived in another really nice townhouse, which backed up on a creek. 

I'll be back again, and you'll see I returned to a state I'd lived in before!

I'm adding this post to the October Meme at Sepia Saturday, of "From Here to There."  It seems my moving around in SE United States was also from here to there, though just in my own lifetime rather than those of more "sepia" photos.