Break Chronicles: Last Day = All About Finishing Things Up

Today is the last day of the mid-summer break that I get during our Extended School Year every year. Tomorrow is my return to my music therapy room, my current intern, and all my clients. There will be some new clients and other clients will be gone. A week is a long time in the term of a psychiatric residential treatment facility, and it is always interesting to see what happens during our breaks. It is also interesting to see how many emails come through during that time. Most of the ones that I receive have little to nothing to do with me...

I am never really all that ready to head back to work during our breaks. A week off is just not enough time for me to finish up things at home, get bored, and then start getting ready to return to work. I only truly feel refreshed when we get into two weeks away from work. I don't get that length of time off anymore. We used to, but not now. Now, the longest duration of any break is about 13 days - not quite enough for me to get bored while at home. I will be taking a longer break during the next time because of the World Congress. I will be missing the last week of our summer session for my only professional time for this contract year. No more time off for professional development until July 2024! That's fine because I have finished my CMTEs for this cycle. It is time to start over with CMTEs, but not until January of 2024 when my new cycle starts up.

It is hard to believe that I have entered my 31st year as a music therapist. Life as a music therapist hasn't really changed all that much over the past 31 years when it comes to what we do - but how we do things has changed quite a bit. More than anything else, how we get recorded music into the music therapy environment has changed.

I am looking forward to singing again. I spent most of the first summer session doing things that did not require singing - mainly because I kept coughing in pretty bad spasms that kept me from singing. My intern will be taking over a bit more of the session interactions starting tomorrow, so I will be spending less time singing than I would have earlier, but I still have quite a bit of active musicking to do in sessions. I will be leading some singing games and lots of familiar songs for my clients as we continue to go through our summer interactions.

Happy Sunday. I hope that you get some time to rest. I am looking forward to my next rest period - travel and time with my family and friends before coming home for another week of rest before we return to our five-day weeks and my one-day weekends. So, it is time to enjoy the hours that I have left before going back to work.

See you all tomorrow morning - maybe. It will depend on how interested I am in getting up at my "usual" time...