Early Evening Blogging - Day Two - This One Is Better, I Swear!!

My mood-elevator keeping me in one place.

Yesterday was not my best day when it comes to writing blog posts. I always hesitate to publish my rants because I don't want to drag you down into my dark moods, but I also try to remember that one of the pledges that I made to myself was to always tell the truth about what music therapy is and how I navigate the world of music therapy as a practitioner. That sometimes means that things don't sound happy.

It happens.

Yesterday's last session was a frustrating one for me, and the frustrations continued today, but I was ready and able to handle those challenges a bit better. This is often my pattern. I hit a wall - BAM - and then I am able to see the wall. I don't ever seem to see the wall until I hit it. It's silly, but that's me, ESPECIALLY in the summer months when I tend towards Seasonal Affective Disorder stuff. When the perfect storm hits, I tend to go off the deep end. By the end of last evening, I was in full-out pity party for one mode - crying at a (admitting) beautiful song and then not being able to sleep after my intern webinar. I woke up extremely early, still stressed about the day before and feeling the weather settling into my joints. (Did I mention that I have arthritis in my legs that gets worse when it is hot and humid outside?? Just add to all the stuff going on...)

Today's second to last session was the same group that caused so much frustration yesterday. The ringleader was up to his old tricks but his ardent followers were not into his hi-jinks today so we actually got some things done. He also was sitting on two chair legs and then fell when the chair slipped out from under him. All the staff in the room had to turn away to keep from laughing out loud! Karma moment!!

I left my job feeling better than yesterday by leaps and bounds!

There are reasons that I don't usually blog in the afternoons. The first is that my brain is absolutely fried when I finally get home after my 11 hour day. I have difficulties putting words together into sensible sentences. I stare at the keyboard and have no idea what I can write about and everything seems to be gobbledygook when I do write something down. I can't even think of a second reason right now. I think this will get better as I get more accustomed to this evening routine. I hope this will get better as I get more accustomed to this evening routine. There are significant differences in those last two sentences.

So, in the music therapy part of my world, things are going pretty well. As I mentioned yesterday, many of my students are getting back into the routine of full-time school again without any sort of bobbling, and most of them seem to be happy to be in sessions led by our senior intern. The junior intern is going to be starting her caseload assimilation next week. I am not doing much therapy because I want my senior intern to get as much experience leading groups as possible before she finishes her time with me - we will have to extend her time a couple of weeks but not as much as I feared. She has worked really hard at non-direct service projects and learning during her time in quarantine, so she's in better shape than we both thought when she came back to work with us. That's been a relief.

I am finding that my improvisation needs are increasing now that I am transitioning into the role of observer rather than therapist. I have songs in my head, and I am singing them all the time - to family members on the phone, to the cat, to people I see in the hallway at work! I constantly have both familiar and original to me songs going on. Unfortunately, I never have anything to record these songs with at the moment they arrive in my brain so the songs are lost to improvisation. That's okay, but I wish I had something with me all the time for recording. (I'm too lazy to go turn on my phone and wait for it to be ready to record...)

I am celebrating the diminishing pain in my legs, the karma moment I was able to witness today during my dreaded session, the plethora of songs that are bursting forth from my brain, and the cat who keeps me grounded and present in the moment.

I will keep holding onto my evening routine. I will try to find the positives in the evening that I can more easily identify in the morning.