Closing Doors and Walking Into the Uncertain Future

It is the end of this calendar year, and I always become nostalgic when it comes to changing the year from one to the next. This year has been full of challenges and ups and downs, and I feel the need to talk about where I am in this moment right here, right now.

I took my cat's leftover consumables to the vet yesterday to give the resources to cats who will be able to use them. I have closed the door to her bathroom and haven't cleaned out her litter box yet. I know that it is silly not to clean up, but I just can't do it yet. I am allowing myself the opportunity to grieve the way I need to grieve. I will know when it is time to say that final goodbye.

I also went to my Occupational Therapist for my second appointment. I increased my range of motion in all joints but am not to full mobility or range yet. She told me to start playing the piano and to attempt the guitar again. I also have these wonderful straps to "help" me stretch.

Doesn't that look like fun? It hurts, but taking the straps off and letting my fingers stretch back again hurts significantly more. I am using my mom's homemade rice heat packs to help me with the ache. I am also typing with all my fingers on my left hand. I am also holding my pen the way I usually do - with an appropriate grip rather than the bad one that I have used for the past four months.

My thought for this post was to think a bit about the things I want to leave behind in this year and start to think about what I want to take up in the new year. Get ready.

First off, I want to leave behind the feeling of boredom that I entered with in January 2020. I was feeling like there was nothing new to challenge me at my job, so I wanted to grow and find new ways to think about how I choose to practice music therapy. I think that this year has certainly provided me with those growth opportunities and new ways to work. 

I am trying to figure out how to revamp my internship program to accommodate the quixotic nature of this year and to prepare future interns for just about anything. I have found that my competency-based evaluation just didn't really reflect the actual opportunities that my interns had this year. It is time to reconsider what I want my interns to do and to expand on the manner in which they demonstrate their competence. We were unable to do individual treatment, so there were limited opportunities for things like assessments and treatment planning in the way that I usually do them. So, since we couldn't do those systems, then the evaluation was inappropriate for those interns. How do I design a competency-based program that allows for the type of changes that we have all endured this year? 

I will be starting with my assignments. It is time to sit down and think about how to get interns the essential opportunities that I think they need. I find that starting with the end goal tends to help me figure out what I can do to get people to that point. If I want to make sure that interns have experience in IEP goal setting, then I need to figure out a couple of different ways to get them there. So, it is time to sit down with a printed copy of my evaluation and start to think a bit more about what it means to be a music therapist in 2021. This is always a daunting task, but an important one. I am looking forward to working on this in the next several weeks. It has to be finished by the time I start working with intern #32 in March.

To continue the thought of leaving boredom behind, I am embarking on an ambitious reading and continuing education program. Unfortunately, these things have little to do with my day-to-day job - in fact, there is no reason to even let my job folks know that I am pursuing these goals - but they do affect how I do my everyday job routine. I am going to include some time for reading every afternoon after bus duty in the hour of extra time I spend at work daily to accommodate my interns' schedules. I will be reading, thinking, assimilating, and synthesizing what I read into practical considerations for my own use and to write about in this blog. I have already started reading my first book - one I've had for a time now - A Comprehensive Guide to Music Therapy: Theory, Clinical Practice, Research and Training by Tony Wigram, Inge Nygaard Pedersen, & Lars Ole Bonde. I am two chapters into this book, and I am finding some things to be somewhat dated, but the general ideas are sound. I will continue to read and synthesize and write and read and all that to inform my own way of thinking about music therapy and how I want to practice it in my facility.

I am ending this year feeling isolated from most of the music therapy community. This is partially my own doing - I have refrained from almost all conferences this year due to lack of interest - but I am finding that I want to talk to others about things that are happening as part of our profession again. I am getting ready to put together a planning group to meet via Zoom and do some creative collaboration. I will post more details here once I get it figured out.

I am getting ready to close the door on this year. It is time to step out into new thoughts and go on the uncertain journey that is 2021.