Sentimental Sunday: Post #2515 - Looking Back to 2020

Sentimental Sunday – Graphic has mottled gray background with yellow spindly flowers coming from off-screen on both bottom corners. In script, there is the text, “Sentimental Sunday.” Under the title text, in smaller print, the text states, “musictxandme.blogspot.com” and www.musictherapyworks.com -the URLs of the blog and the website.
It is Sunday, and, in an attempt to shake me out of a bit of depression this week, I am happy to look back at a former post. This post, #2515, happened on a Sunday in August 2020. I don't know if you remember the dark times of August 2020, but I was in the midst of navigating ever changing ways to do music therapy and my church job and living. Every day was unknown and things were difficult to navigate. I wanted to do some music therapy videos which never came about. I was going to be tasked with doing church videos very soon, so all my video bandwidth went towards a paying gig rather than making videos. I turned my attention to different areas of the music therapy world shortly after all of this.

Most of the posts from this time were reactive posts - concerned with things that were happening around us all. I haven't really seemed to get out of that attitude or mindset since COVID started. I feel like I used to be more proactive, and now I just react to what others do around me. I feel even more isolated in the music therapy community than I did back in 2020, and I spend most of my music therapy time now just doing my job and not really pushing the profession forward. I don't like that fact, but I also don't know or want to do things differently.

I am in a strange season of wanting more but not wanting to have to do more.

I still love being a music therapist. I am tired of working in a place where physical injury is common, and I feel the decades of working with this population in my body every single day. I am looking forward to being able to leave this position in less than three years to move into my next iteration as a music therapist, but that future is a bit scary since it is clouded - all the future is, of course. I don't know for sure what will be next, but I hope that I can get a job working as a contract music therapist or part-time music therapist for a music therapy company. I know that I will need to work after I "retire" from my school job - the pension isn't all that robust - but I won't have to do as much as I am doing now. I will also be able to be a bit picky about the clients that I serve based on my body needs.

I am still passionate about music therapy education and clinical training. I no longer have an active role in how our profession shapes these experiences for current students than I used to be, but I am still out there, working with my interns. I am also still here, pushing my opinions and experiences out into the world via this blog.

At this particular time in my life, I am thinking all the time, but I am not acting on anything. My goblins arrive all of the time - "I should be..." "I could..." "If only I would..." I smash them down the best I can while still acknowledging that those ideas are happening.

Today, I am feeling like I might be able to accomplish something that is on my list. We will see what gets finished after I spend a morning at church and then an afternoon of online meeting and errands. I will help future me out by stripping my bed before I head upstairs to take my shower and get ready for church this morning. I have to get home after church quickly to start an online meeting for the Online Conference for Music Therapy, Inc., and then I have a grocery order to pick up between 2 and 3. After that, I will make my bed with clean bedding (at least, that's the big chore for today) and then prepare myself for tomorrow's work schedule.

(By the way, if you read yesterday's post, you might like to know that the cover I was working on adhered together, so it is time to start filling the cover up with signatures. Anyone want a Disney-themed planner or journal?? I will post pictures when I get it finished up!! Just let me know if it should be yours!)

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