by Dr. Margaret Rutherford, Miss June 2016

Before I started blogging in August 2012, I was a normal, slightly overworked psychologist.

My son was in his freshman year in college. I had sat down and begun to write some of what I was experiencing. Jeannette Balleza Collins, whose job was to encourage entrepreneurs here in Northwest Arkansas, read a couple of them, and told me I should start blogging.

I had never read a blog.

She set me up on WordPress, and after much editing, debate, cold feet, and pondering how I could write about my own life ethically, she hit “Publish” on December 17th, 2012.

I needed the nudge. “You’re ready,” she said, with a smile.

I had become quite accustomed to the relative anonymity of being a therapist. I rarely talked about myself — even my friends told me I wasn’t as forthcoming as they would’ve liked. Although a lot of people who meet me might think I’m fairly extroverted, I’m actually an introvert, much more comfortable at home with a book, than socializing.

Since that day in 2012, my days have grown more busy, my views and life more known, and my world more… peopled.

It’s quite nice, and very meaningful.

What’s a typical day like?

I’ve always been an early morning person (one of those cheery, energetic people who non-early morning people despise…). That’s lucky, because I start seeing patients usually at 9 or 10:00 am. I work out several mornings a week, either with a trainer (who pays no attention when I bemoan the fact that I’m too old to do one more plank), or I walk the very steep hill we live on – 3 miles, round trip.

Since I sit in a chair and listen for a living, the exercise is mandatory for survival.

The mornings I’m not off sweating somewhere, I’m writing, usually by 5:30 or 6.  My structure has been to write a post a week for my own website, and I’ve been Midlife Boulevard’s featured mental health blogger for almost two years. So I owe them a post a month. I also wrote original posts for Boomeon once a month, but that website petered out a few months ago.

Like all of you, I’m doing the other blogging work – checking emails for questions from readers, commenting on other blogs, Tweeting or Pinning or Instagramming. The last year, I’ve been writing a book as well, and have been busy with research, interviews, finding an agent and completing a book proposal.

Then I’m off to my real job, seeing usually seven or eight patients a day. I have volunteered for several years at a local free health clinic as well, work that is tremendously rewarding.

I have never gotten tired of what I do. It’s such an honor for people to trust you with their vulnerabilities, to count on your experience to help them see their way through depression, anxiety, despair, loss, or trauma. You name it. I’m a huge believer in trying to connect people with their own strengths.

People often ask, “But don’t you get down, hearing all those problems?”

They forget how much courage I see. The positive change I watch as someone learns, makes connections, heals from trauma, takes responsibility, works through shame — whatever their particular path happens to be — is amazing.

When I come home, and after I’ve returned phone calls that couldn’t be taken during the day, I love to relax… and cook. If it’s got garlic in it, I have tried to cook it. When I’m absolutely bushed, we might go out. (Since we had only the one son, it’s just me and my husband now..) Or we scrounge together for leftovers.

People ask me if I have watched certain more serious TV or cable shows that are all the rage. That’s a big “no.” Since what I do can be pretty serious, Nashville or Scandal is about as heavy as I get.

The rest of the night, it’s time to relax. My husband and I laugh.. a lot. But sometimes, I need some time alone (that whole introverted thing…).  He’s been married to me long enough to give me that space.  “I know I’m not supposed to take this personally,” and he’ll head upstairs.

It was a huge transition not to be a hands-on parent anymore. My son comes and goes, but won’t come home to live again. All that is as it should be. So this is the new normal.

I have my work, my writing, my husband and other people that I love (not in that order…).

No telling what the next years will bring.

I’ll keep on trying to be ready.