Tomorrow Starts My Next Decade

Today is my last day in my current decade, and tomorrow starts a new decade of living for me. That's right - tomorrow is my birthday, and it is a big one. I have been practicing the thought of this new decade for months now, so the transition isn't as shocking as it was when I turned over the last decade, but I am still a bit awed by the fact that I have lived as long as I have. It doesn't seem possible and seems all too real at the same time. 

A new decade.

My last decade was marked by severe health-changing events every three years. I'd be happy to give up that pattern for sure! My last decade included a series of changes - some of my doing and some not - in my professional goals and ideas and wishes for myself. My last decade included betrayals by people I thought were my friends but who turned out to just use me, but this decade also included friendships that strengthened into really important relationships for me. I have lost more friends to sickness and death in this decade than in the others I have lived through, and I know that this trend will continue as we all age. Overall, my last decade of life has been what life is - challenging, evolving, and an experience that I am glad to have lived through.

A new decade.

Over the past ten years, I have seen music therapy rocked to the core by Master's Level Entry debates, disagreements, and derailment. I have watched business owners become the norm for music therapy employment rather than the exception. I have been completely immersed in our association and how it works and I have been completely away from all things association-related - by choice. I have been on the forefront of online conferences for the entire decade. I have been one of the few who offered online training to other music therapists, and I have watched as this way of doing things has grown to encompass many other people in the world.

A new decade.

As a music therapist, I have grown over the past ten years. I started the decade fully immersed in student loans and working for an educational goal that I never reached. I solidified my views on music therapy clinical training and competency-based education. I found myself entering a time of reading about music therapy, first for assignments, and then for my own pleasure. I have been blogging about music therapy for a long time now, and it is interesting to go back into the archives to see what types of questions I had back at the beginning of this decade compared to the questions that I have now. Some are radically changed and others are exactly the same.

A new decade.

Like I said above, I have been practicing my new age and this new decade for several months now. I find that this practice helps me when the situation becomes reality rather than a future event. I will wake up tomorrow and look forward to this new decade ahead of me. I wonder what the next ten years will bring to me and to this profession.

See you tomorrow.