Jenni J.V. Wilson, LMFT
President, LA-CAMFT

Respect the Journey

My parents met doing theatre in Florida. Young, talented, arrogant, and aspirational, it was only a matter of time before they founded their own company—but it didn’t last, because they didn’t know how to build and sustain something so large on their own. It’s hard to build something big and new all by yourself. 

In Florida both my parents worked in local television and radio, but by 1969 they were lured up north by Michigan’s teachers-boom, where my mother taught English and theatre, while my father landed a job at a college university. In the early ‘70s they continued to do regional theatre throughout the year, and in the summers traveled with friends as an educational performance troupe called something groovy like, “The Moving Company.” My parents always undertook creative performance projects in their “down time.” In those days there wasn’t endless content to stream and work wasn’t life—they were people… people who need people because there’s no business like show business and that’s how I came to be born in a trunk. 

When I was 3 years old we moved to a town with a renowned community theatre my parents immediately joined. My youth was spent inside most days, at rehearsals, set load-ins and load-outs, tech run-thrus, and running crew backstage. Any rare outdoor time was spent watching boats from the large parking lot outside the theatre Load-In door that edged on Lake Saint Clair, or spinning until I was dizzy, rolling down the grassy hill of what was once the enormous pristine waterfront yard of a mansion long ago donated to the city as the War Memorial community center which now housed a ballroom and theatre addition. This place was a second home, where generations of theatre folx and their kids surrounded me on the weekends, and too many late weekday-nights. While other kids were regularly soaking up Vitamin D elsewhere in the fresh air, I was building sets, running lines, running light cues, running around getting in the way, or observing quietly in the cool darkness of the house and wings, as characters, words, movements, and choices became magic. 

I grew up at parties filled with shit-talkers and saints. Cigarette-smoking, beer-drinking, euchre-playing old-timers and bawdy, exhibitionistic, eager up-and-comers taught me how to listen and what a good story sounded like. Combinations of these persons were always around, helping my mom edit the theatre newsletter or convening as play-reading committees deciding the upcoming seasons or gathering to cast the ballots for their yearly performance awards at what was referred to as The Witch Hunt (which I swear had some crazy masonic-like undertones, but I’ll never know). Members loved and hated each other. Drama thrived on and off the stage. But everyone would rally-round when someone got married, drank-up when someone divorced, and together mourned the fallen when someone died. There was a continuum to it all. My parents who started out as bright young things resented by the former in-crowd, later were the ones pretending not to be threatened by new faces or hurt when passed over for a position. 

Like so many, this isn’t my first career. I went from being a theatre dork, to being a dorky theatre major, to working in the film & television industries as an awkward adult before switching tracks at the age of 40. All that time, my academic, theatre, and professional communities saved me and kept me sane. My post-undergrad friends taught me about Trader Joe’s and the business of “The Business”, as we played cards in each other’s kitchens. In the days before Facebook, I found an online chosen-family comprised of fine-and-dandy wackos of all ages, experiences, and talents, who mostly worked in entertainment and tried to make each other laugh—but we cried a lot together, too. And when the time came, it was one of my best music and theatre friends from undergrad, a few years younger, that I followed to Antioch where we pursued our Clinical Psychology degrees together. 

All my life it’s been natural to have people around who are older than I am, and folx who are younger. I’ve been fed and done the feeding. I’ve BEEN the elder, and I’ve been the foaling finding my footing. I’ve come and I’ve gone, and always cared. I’d never have gotten where I am without community… my community, wherever I could find it. 

Changing careers meant a necessary absence from beloved former groups as I carved out an identity as an LMFT. I’ve always understood that it’s not what you know that gets your business off the ground, it’s who you know—why would the mental health world be any different? And of all the Los Angeles networking meets I dropped in on, LA-CAMFT events were the ones where the enthusiasm of the new and seasoned members drew me in beyond the CEU presentations. I met therapists who were my people—writers, musicians, artists, actors, mystics, intellectuals, yogis, naïve experts, and wizened fools—who invited me in and engaged with me when I showed up. Like any respectable Gen X-er, I said, “Sure, okay, whatever, I’ll check it out.” And here I am. Welcoming YOU. 

One day the fresh therapists of today will be the establishment of tomorrow, feeling as skeptical and fearing irrelevance as their predecessors might do now. But skepticism aside, no one is irrelevant here. We need everyone in this community to keep this community knowing, growing, and flowing. New generations must continue to be invited in, and older generations must hold the door for them. In many cases, we’re not working in the same ways, with the same kinds of clients, or from the same scripts – but we all have something to learn from each other. 

One day I’ll read the names of new board members or SIG Chairs wondering who these people are, and what happened to all those cool so-and-sos I served with back-in-the-day. But I hope I’ll still be motivated to meet the new team-members or lead a group. I hope I’m invited to help however I can. I won’t always be on the board, and frankly, I don’t want to be, but I’ve got a lifetime membership, baby, so you’re all stuck with me. 

Respect the experienced voices. Respect the energetic un-cynical youth. Respect the Journey, and journey with respect. We’re all headed the same way.

Paz y Amor. 

JJVW — Jenni June Villegas Wilson

Jenni J.V. Wilson, LMFT is a collaborative conversationalist, trained in narrative therapy and EMDR. She works with creative and anxious clients on improving, avoiding, and eliminating co-dependent and toxic relationships, while finding healthy ways to be unapologetically themselves. She is the primary therapist at Conclusions Treatment Center IOP in Mission Hills, and has a private practice in Sherman Oaks.