It's been awhile but felt like getting back into it. Still working in the helping profession and I 'm trying to pave a way out gracefully without leaving too much dust behind. I'm writing a book entitled " Under The Radar Screen" My life in the Art of Helping, An Instructional Memoir. I have written 12 plus chapters that span a timeframe from 1976- to present and it amazed me how clearly the memories of each stop along the way arrive as I sit down to write. This process has been therapeutic and also quite enlightening in terms of the effect a lifetime of helping people in need can stamp it's memory into ones life and psychic soul. I am still working and have been for the past two years helping people with a broad range of needs and it seems that there are no simple issues but people seem to be dealing with multi-layer challenges that are primarily driven by low economic status that in my opinion pushes people to the edges and more so than ever before. I also have been doing a fair amount of reading on the idea and notion of, parallel trauma that is quite common in the social work world as there are many things we see that we can't emotionally deal with in the moment and so we put them away some where, only to arise when least expected and at times we don't plan for. I will be writing more about the long term effects as well as the long term joy of doing great and meaningful work over a lifetime. I also plan to post excerpts from the book in future blogs. Until the next time, remember this if were are all on the same page, first we couldn't fit and the novel of one's life would be quite boring. so honor the differences in all the people you help and in yourself, it's a good thing.