Musing About Longevity in This Profession

I completed one of the many, MANY survey requests that have crossed my email address in the past two months (you can tell it's thesis season!!) this morning. It was about longevity as a music therapist and asked some of the questions I want answered, but not all of them.

Now, I have been a professional music therapist for almost 27 years now. This is my anniversary month (finished my internship on March 26), and I always get a bit sentimental about my professional choice during the month of March. In the interest of full disclosure, because I try to be completely honest and transparent in my blog, I have not always been at a point where music therapy was clearly the answer for me and my life. There have been good times and there have been completely lousy times in my journey through music therapy. I have always remembered that I am not stuck - I am free to go and do what I need to go and do in this life. It's just been fortunate that music therapy has been what I need to do.

My first two jobs out of college were not music therapy jobs. Other than that 14 months of doing other things and wishing for a music therapy job, I have been able to find jobs as a music therapist without too much difficulty - BUT, I am someone who will move to the job and doesn't have to be in one geographical area. That's how I ended up in Kansas. California just didn't have the music therapy and educational opportunities that I wanted. I picked up my life and moved 1400 miles away from my family members to find a job to support my expensive education habit. I have that ability - I can go wherever I want to go to chase the next perfect job...if I ever find it.

I have had many lean years. Many years of penny pinching so I can afford to pay the AMTA dues required of me because I am an internship director (the only group of people that HAVE to be members in order to do something for free for the association, by the way!). I have foregone eating meat because I had tuition payments at the same time I was paying on my student loans. I have not had many cool vacations because most of my money went towards going to conferences rather than going to Hawaii.

I have now come to a place in my career where I feel financially stable. I was able to pay off the co-insurance and deductible for my surprise surgery. The last surgery was cheaper for me (insurance costs were not as high), but more of a financial emergency than this past one. It hurt, giving all that money to the people who needed to be compensated for their care of me, but I am not in danger of bankruptcy or having to eat macaroni and cheese instead of meat for months on end because pennies are too tight.

It has been a long haul.

I think the most important measure of longevity in this profession is the ability to be economical while doing a job that is not well-paid. I haven't had to give up on my dream of being a music therapist because I have continued to make that my focus. I want to be a music therapist, so I have taken part-time jobs. I have looked for opportunities outside my current job to see what's out there, and I have realized that my position and situation are very good compared to what is out there waiting for someone with my years of experience and (shudder) professional expertise. I have chased opportunities, and I have found them. 

I have also refused to stay stagnant in my professional life. When I have been curious about something, I've figured out how to learn more and more about things that interested me. This has meant traveling to meet people, to see original documents in the AMTA archives, and getting involved in things like the Online Conference for Music Therapy (something that I would NEVER have considered doing on my own, but was convinced to try something WAY out of comfort zone!). My longevity in this music therapy life has been affected by my evolution as a therapist.

I am currently in a period of change and growth. It's not easy, but I think all of us should have these times to reflect and then morph into the next version of ourselves. I kinda think that Jeeves from the Men In Black movies is a good visual representation of what I'm thinking about here. That guy gets his head blown off, and it comes back, but a bit different from what it was before. I hope that I will come out of this time, still recognizably me, but a bit more centered and just a bit different. Stronger. More centered in myself and what I offer to the world. Just a bit more evolved as a (shudder again) middle-aged music therapist, internship director, and person.

Why are you still a music therapist?