Starting Survival Mode in 3...2...1

It is almost the start of a new school year in my area of this world, and as a school-based music therapist, I am getting myself put together enough to face this year with the same type of uncertainty that I faced the start of last year...and probably with good reason.

At this time last year, I was uncertain that the pandemic outlook was as rosy as others seemed to think it would be, and my skepticism won out. Last year was a time where my work situation changed radically about every six-eight weeks, and being a therapist for students who could not be accessed was difficult - to put it very mildly. We went from full-time, in-person school to hybrid for some clients and live for others, to complete lockdown due to an outbreak at my facility, to back to full-time, in-person school for some and hybrid for others, to full engagement with all clients but in segregated classes (residents with residents, day students with day students), to full mixing of our two populations. I had to scramble to find things to do that justified my paycheck but that would provide opportunities for my clients to interact with music in a way that was prepared ahead of time and could be accessed as needed by other staff members and caregivers. I started a school YouTube channel and focused my attention on producing videos and playlists for my co-workers to use to engage my clients in music interaction at times when I was not allowed to be there. I figured out that working from home (in this particular job) was not my future - BIG life lesson here!

At this time last year, I was unaware of the big life changes that were still to come - things that were not job-related but that were my situations to handle. This past school year was filled with grief for me. There was grief caused by the death of my pet and then by my Dad's death two weeks later. There was grief for how much of the world has suffered loss due to this virus. There was grief for how my life changed in this past school year. There was grief in my personal loss of physical function due to a work accident. This was a year of grief and loss for me.

As I am getting ready to start the 2021-2022 school year, I am once again feeling cautious and scared of what the future will hold. There are so many new COVID cases in my state that we have slipped into the darkest colors on all the color charts, yet my boss keeps telling me that we don't have to follow the science and wear masks. (By the way, I do - everywhere I go, I am masked - with the exception of pumping my gasoline outside...I don't mask there, but I DO distance and use a barrier between my hands and any surfaces...) There are no mask mandates in place at this point in my rural school district. I foresee that there will be yet another outbreak of this pandemic in my school, and I am scared about that! I do not want to follow all the rules and still get sick because of the selfishness of others.

Can you tell that I awoke with a monster headache? I tend to get ranty when this happens. Let me go inhale some chemistry and then swish out my mouth to see if that helps the situation...be right back...

Let me get off my high horse now and try to make some sense out of my feelings and situations.

This pandemic is not over. It will not be over for a very long time. I have done all that I can do to protect myself, and I will continue to wear my masks, socially distance from other people, and try to keep being an example to others about how to engage in all of this. I will avoid as much hype and hyperbole as possible as it does absolutely NO GOOD for my mental status and health. I will survive the upcoming heat wave in my usual manner, but I will also allow myself to feel what I feel without shame. I will try to keep being a consistent example for others in my life - of calm in swirling seas, of reason through ignorance, of scientific thinking through the increasing insistence that this is all just a hoax. When did "WE" (society as a whole) become so stupid? Was it as soon as we started taking all our information from small devices that we carry around with us??

Well, the medication hasn't helped the headache rant yet...

I am heading back to school on Monday firmly set on survival mode. I am going to listen to all the encouragement to not wear our masks and to make things look like "normal," and then I am still going to wear my mask during music therapy. I think it is the ethical and responsible thing to do during the rise of the Delta variant happening here in my country. I want to keep myself safe, but I also want to keep others safe, so I will mask up. If you choose not do do so, then get used to not seeing me in person. I can't risk becoming sick from this virus. I can't risk taking this virus from one place where I am to another place. I will continue to listen to what the scientists have to say, and I trust myself well enough to acknowledge that they will be making changes in what they tell us as information comes in - not in an attempt to control us but in an attempt to get this virus under control. I will do my little part to keep myself and others safe until all of this becomes memory.

Time to take some Tylenol for this headache and possibly go back to sleep for a bit. Thank you for reading.