Resetting the Body and the Brain to Get Started Blogging Again

Hello.

My social media name is MJ, and I am a middle-aged woman who is also a music therapist. I work with persons with a variety of complex diagnoses, and I have a huge interest in all things music therapy clinical training. I am an internship director as well as a staff music therapist, and I am currently recovering from Influenza A - something that is going through my facility and my communities right now. I am currently feeling very tired, and I have neglected my writing habit woefully for the entire past week - something that is very unusual for me.

The title of this blog is music, therapy, and me, so if you are here, I assume that you are interested in one or more of these categories. I know my sister reads the blog occasionally - I assume that she is more interested in the me part of the blog than the other two categories, but I haven't really asked her about that... Hey, sissa!!

I have been writing this blog for the past 17 years, and my writing habits have varied over all those years. Recently, I've been hearing that blogs are passe, but that will not stop me from writing on these topics. This is a venue and platform that I use for my self-care and burnout monitoring. I write here for me, and anyone who interacts with this blog who is not me is welcome to comment and debate things with me with some moderation. I maintain this small piece of the internet as a place for me to think things through and to share my opinions about things that happen in my life.

At this very moment, I am listening to a bullet journal YouTube video as I am writing. I have about an hour before I have to go to my part-time job, that of a church music director and worship leader. This is the week after Easter, traditionally known as "low attendance Sunday," but that will not stop us from offering spiritual thoughts and songs. I have to get myself washed, dressed, and ready for an hour of teaching Sunday Schoolers (not originally part of my job) before I sing and lead the choir during our worship service. After I am finished with that job, I will go see a movie. I'm not sure what I will see - it will depend on when I get to the theater and the mood I find myself in, but I will go see a movie. There are three that I would like to see in my movie theater, so I have a choice to make. At some point, I need to make a grocery order for pick-up for tomorrow evening after my occupational therapy appointment.

This is a place where I talk about my life, and specifically, about my life as a music therapist. I have been a professional music therapist for 31 years now. My anniversary is on March 26th, and that date came and went this year, as it does every year. I actually remembered that it was the anniversary of my ascension into the professional world before it came and went (thank goodness for Facebook memories to help me remember some of the things that happened in my life). I have spent most of my life working with clients who have multiple diagnoses including developmental and psychiatric diagnoses, and I have spent 30 of my 31 years in jobs where music therapy was the primary job requirement. The first year, I moved through two jobs where my degree helped me but where I was not doing music therapy as part of my job duties. As a part of my current position, I am an internship director. At the moment, I do not have any interns, and I am debating whether I want to close my internship or keep it going. I am currently looking at my near and far-off futures, and I am evaluating my life on several continua as I try to figure out what I will be doing this year and in the next ten years. I thought I had that planned out, but recent developments have shaken up my planning, so I am currently unable to settle into any sort of particular plan at the moment.

Anyway...

This is a place where I share my opinions about things. At the moment, I don't really know what is happening in the bigger music therapy world because I am pretty isolated in my job and my interactions with other music therapists. However, music therapy week starts on the 10th and goes until the 15th, so this seems to be a pretty good time to write a bit about music, therapy, and me. 

If you are someone who reads this blog often, thank you. If you have just found this and want to use this as a foray into the world of music therapy, then welcome. I suggest that you look at the labels and start journeying through the things that I have written about over and over and over and...

It is time to start my work time, so I am going to head on out.

Thank you for being here...