Thoughtful Thursday: I Always Do This At the End of Break

I did not go to sleep last night until early this morning. I got inspired by a friend's request to make a book, and I just couldn't get my brain to stop churning around until I had started the book production process. I woke up later than usual, and now I am sitting in front of my computer on this cloudy Thoughtful Thursday, yawning while I am remembering that I do have a theme for this particular day, so I need to write about that theme...

Thoughtful Thursday

I am currently trying to wrap my mind around the various things that I have heard about surrounding the pandemic, the responses that others have around it, and the way we are now doing things in education because of it all.

I am a school-based music therapist. Due to the clients that I choose to work with, I am an essential health care worker during all of this. I am also a person who has significant risk factors for this virus to be concerning. For the past five months, I have been to work, home, and the occasional store for food and sundry items. I have ordered food into my home, bought things from Amazon, and have not worn a mask while in my home atmosphere. I have learned how to make edited videos, and I have led music therapy sessions, in person, every work day during this pandemic while singing through a mask and dealing with an exacerbation of some of my symptomology. I have had to be at home until my doctors could communicate about whether I was symptomatic of COVID or just summer. (It's just summer responses.) I have navigated this time of virus without getting the virus, and I hope to continue that pattern.

I, however, am still scared by all of this.

I am not scared about working with the clients that I've been working with during this entire time. They are in a closed system with little to no interaction with persons that could be exposed other than the staff members - like me - who come in from other places. I am more scared about the attitudes of some of my co-workers who do not seem to understand that they can be asymptomatic and still give the virus to other people - ME - who may have a bigger response to it all. I am scared that I can do all the things that I am doing - isolating, limiting all of my interactions with other people - and still be affected by the behavior of others.

My thoughts right now head towards doom and gloom because of two different setting events - first, I am exhausted because of the things that I have done in the past day, and second, it is reaching the end of my break, and my pattern is to get a bit sad about having to go back to work. I still have three days left (after today), but I also have so much that I want to do...that I haven't done. Rather than dwell on what I haven't finished up, I will spend most of my time trying to celebrate the things that I have done.

And, here is one of those things!

As you know, if you read this blog on a regular basis, my word of the year is "Evolve." I chose this word because it encompassed all of the other things that I wanted for the year of 2020 - growth, change, trying to be different, taking risks, living a mindful life. I have done things this year that astound me, but many of the big things that I set out to do this time around were canceled because of COVID-19. One of those things was to have an exhibit at the Midwestern Regional Conference. I have some materials ready to be sold to music therapists - file folder activities, books, all that stuff - I also indulged my own creative urges and made things that are not naturally part of music therapy stuff but that are just plain old fun - books!

I love making books from scrap paper and old envelopes and ribbon and glue and cardboard boxes. Yesterday, I took the evolving step of sharing something that I love with the bigger world by sharing this video with my friends and family members on Facebook. This is not something that I do very often - share what I make with others on social media - because this is something I often do for myself, and I often fall into the comparison game. You know the one - "What I do is so different from what others do that it is worthless." That little voice in my head is probably my most destructive force.

Now, I did not do this spontaneously. I posted that I had made some books last week, and my father asked me to post more. Other friends indicated some interest as well, so I thought I would try it. I got a bigger response from friends and family than I thought I would. There was even an exchange from my sister about various family jokes! People seemed to like what I made, and several of them asked for their own versions. Now, I love making books, but I do not like using them (for some strange reason). I just want to sit and admire the work, I guess.

I am now finishing up the books in the video below to send off to a friend in Oklahoma. I have two books that I am making based on specific themes as requested, and I will be making a couple of other books for friends who have left as much of the decisions to me as possible. I now get to make things for people and then send them off to their new homes for those folks to use however they see fit.

I woke up this morning after sleeping hard for the short amount of time that I actually slept, and had ideas about what I wanted to do in my craft room today. I ordered some things from Amazon to finish up the dragonfly book that a friend requested and to replace some of the things that I have used up. I also want to finish up the two books that are here in this video before I send them out into the world to be used and (hopefully) loved.

It is time to start getting back into a work frame of mind, but I am going to spend most of the next four days also enjoying the opportunity to make things and share them with other people. I anticipate a trip to the post office on Saturday to send these projects out to people (field trip, hooray!!), and then the heady feeling that comes with starting a new project.

Happy Thursday, everyone. I hope that you have something in your life that inspires passion, interest, and feelings of contentment like these little books do for me...