My radiator in my car cracked and I had to get a new one today. I’ve been pretty concerned about my finances recently. There’s rent. There’s gas. There are groceries. There are books. There’s tuition. Then there is a broken radiator. I keep clicking through craigslist and a million other websites trying to find a job- ANY job, just so I can cover all of my mounding expenses. I get sick over it. My nerves are shot. I knew I was at my all-time low when I considered an ad that said this:

Can You Stomach Crime Scene Cleaning?

“The police, the fire department and crime scene investigators who arrive at a crime scene perform crucial tasks in the aftermath of a violent death. But they don't, as a general rule, clean up. Mopping up after someone who dies violently is the responsibility of that person's family. And until recently, there were very few cleaning companies that would handle that kind of job, so the family members ended up having to do it themselves. Crime scene cleaning companies typically charge up to $600 or more an hour for their service, and most people would pay much more…”

It was at this point that I realized that I might as well sell crack or be a hooker if I wanted to clean up guts and puke from the aftermath of gang shoot outs on the streets of L.A. RACHEL! WAKE UP CALL!

Sometimes I wonder if I am doing the right thing. Unless I become a MAJOR success, I will never make a lot of money in the mental health professions. Psychologists aren’t notorious for driving Bentleys. Despite the ideas that I keep generating to pursue jobs in marketing and advertising and areas where I could maybe make big bucks, things keep happening to help me remember why I want to do this and why being broke for a while (until I meet my 96 year old bajillionaire husband) is okay.

I drove my car to my buddy Raoul at the car place this morning and sat outside waiting for the diagnosis. I sat with a woman who looked 60 but she was probably in her 40’s. She started smoking the second she sat down. It was 8:15 A.M. She was puffing away on her cigs like nobody’s business. I wanted to pry one from her grasp and burn her on the eyelid with it. I hate smokers. I think they are the rudest people ever. Some guy in a beamer drove up. I was wearing my LSU hoody. He approached me and said,

“Did you go to LSU?”

“Yeah.”

“So did my parents. I am from New Orleans. My name is Tony.”

Then he shook my hand, told me to have a nice day, and drove off. I like it when people make an effort to establish a connection or sense of community. It is inconvenient, so it means a lot to me when someone goes that extra step.

Smoker lady’s husband walks up. He looks rough. Then their buddy who was clearly wearing dentures walks up. They all smoked like trains. Dentures asked them for ten dollars. He really, really, really needed ten dollars. Smoker lady said they had to pay rent today and it was $750 and she did not have ten dollars. They kept talking about being broke. Boy, aren’t we all? Something about them made me really sad though. I mean really, really sad. They were talking about this friend who died and that friend who made it and how they are going to be late to go to the doctor’s office today and they had to take the bus across town. How depressing.

Something about watching three people who have meth mouth smoking like trains and talking about how they had no money made me wonder what went wrong with them. I watched this special on Charles Manson the other day. I didn’t know that his mom was a complete whore and kept sending him away because she didn’t want him. I got really choked up watching this show. The narrator kept reading excerpts from Manson’s journal. For the first time, he seemed very human to me. I’ve always looked at him like a total nutcase, which invalidated his humanity. Hearing things like, “I have never been so lonely,” and “All I want is my mom to love me,” made me sick and sad. I got a glimpse of who he was before he became who he is.

A few nights ago I watched a special on Al Capone. I didn’t quite have those feelings of sympathy for him since he kept cheating on his wife and wound up dying of syphilis, but I felt sorry for him, too.

Right now I’m watching a show called “Going Postal: The 15 Most Shocking Acts of Violence.” What makes these people spiral downward and go on killing sprees? WHAT HAPPENS?

I am taking a “strategies of crisis interventions” class right now. Last night blew me away. It was only the first night of class, and already I felt like things made sense again. I want to know what triggers devastating events, I want to know how people get to that point of madness, and I want to know how to prevent these things from happening.

So I guess I found my calling again and won’t be auditioning for the Real World or cleaning guts off the street for $600 bucks a pop. It’s helping professions or bust. It’s paying off student loans right before I kick the bucket and it’s recognizing that whether or not the money is there, this is where I am, this is who I am, and this is where I feel fulfillment.