Remembering

I found these beautiful orchids at Central Market, where they had quite a variety  (see Extra).  I love orchids, but don't have the environment they need to survive.

Spent the evening with Endless Weekend and Doug, and found myself thinking back to the early days of my professional career as a psychologist.  I saw my most seriously ill patients during my internship year in San Francisco, and so many of them remain vivid in my mind.  It's hard not knowing what became of them after I left - hoping life went well for them, and that I had been able to give them something they could use.  I feel the same way about the disturbed children I saw at the therapeutic school that was my first job after that.  I worked with several of them for the entire four years I was there, and have always wondered if they grew up to be more healthy than they were then.  That's the hardest part of being a psychologist - growing to know and care about people you will never see or hear about again.  And somehow being OK with that.