music, therapy, and me

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? ...

Yesterday, at 8:10am, I said goodbye to my cat, Bella. She had kidney issues and rapidly got worse to the point where it was obvious that she was not able to take care of herself. So, I had to make the difficult decision to let her go. The vet gave me the option of hospitalization for a couple more months or just giving her a release. I chose release. I am sitting here, not quite 24 hours after giving her one last stroke, in sobbing hysterics as I miss her snoring, her scratches at the covers, and her way of sleeping in between my legs in a way that completely immobilized me. I haven't left my house since I got home yesterday morning, and I know that returning to my home without her greeting me at the door is going to be rough. I know that one of the responsibilities of being a pet owner is making decisions about end of life for those pets. Bella was my first pet of my own. I first took her to the vet on September 2, 2006 - about a week after she became mine. She had been living wi...

I am getting ready to head into work in about 90 minutes. In the past week, COVID-19 has arrived at my long-term residential facility, and we are facing yet another series of changes in how we care for the clients in our care. I turned on my phone to find nine messages from work about an upcoming faculty meeting and the news that all students will be learning virtually. I am not sure what that means - in the recent past, we have only done paper packets which is not all that suitable for music therapy, but I know we will find a plan and will continue to engage with our clients in the ways we have to in order to keep going. I awoke this morning after an anxiety dream where one of my clients grabbed me and then started biting my broken fingers. When I started myself awake (in the dream, I was trying to get away from the client), my fingers were fine, there was no pain, and I was just wide awake...at 2:45am. No going back to sleep for me. This is not an uncommon way of waking for me, espec...

THREE AM MUSINGS IN THE MIDST OF MY BRAIN... Oh, silly rabbit. You thought, just three days ago, that there would be some definitive answers and clear plans to work on by now, but shouldn't you have just realized that NOTHING in 2020 is going to be simple?? So, in the midst of all the drama which is 2020, my own little drama is continuing as I try to figure out my near future. I made my way to the hand specialist on Wednesday, and I got some of the answers that I was seeking, but only some of them. The answers I got were mixed as to whether they were affirming or disheartening. I am still digesting all of the stuff that I was told and am trying to figure out what this means to me as a music therapist in my particular setting. The good news is that I have permission to take broken finger out of the splint occasionally to "manipulate the joint." The bad news is that the fracture is not completely healed so I still have to wear both splints for at least another month. The te...

Everywhere I look these days there are angry people. There doesn't seem to be many people who aren't angry about something or another, and most of our anger seems to be part of the entire COVID-19 situation that we are part of at the moment. Some are angry because they are not allowed to do what they feel they should be allowed to do. Others are angry because they want to limit what others do in a protection mode. Others seem to be yelling JUST BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS YELLING, SO HERE IS MY CAUSE THAT I WANT PEOPLE TO HEAR ABOUT! I am not ashamed to admit that I am struggling with all of the negativity that is happening around me, and I am isolating myself from as much of it as possible. As a music therapist, I am linked to music therapists all over the world who are struggling to navigate this pandemic. We are prone to wanting to help (hence the term "therapist"), and this virus has changed everything that we were used to doing in ways that are difficult to process....

Do you remember all the posts that were coming across social media about how rough 2019 was for many of us and how much we were looking forward to the new start that was 2020? I do, and I long for those naive days when 2020 seemed to be a big step forward into life. Little did we all know that 2020 would be what it is now. Since it is now July and quarter three, I've been sitting down to do some things that I do pretty much every quarter. I sit down to make goals for myself and evaluate my progress on the goals for the previous quarter. This quarter also coincided with filling up my old bullet journal, so all of this planning and evaluation is happening in my new journal - the one I'm designing for myself. What have I learned from doing this exercise?? I am great at establishing goals but LOUSY at working towards them at all! I always have really sound and appropriate goals written down for myself, but I rarely make any progress on them at all. I am constantly making grandiose ...

My "co-worker" judging my writing! I need to celebrate something that is going on in my life, so I am going to write a bit about what I've actually done this week...this VERY long week full of rapidly changing circumstances and full of the unknown. Oooh, now I am singing the Panic at the Disco version of Into the Unknown from Frozen 2 - my favorite song from the movie - the PatD version, NOT the Idina Menzel version for some reason - but I digress. This has not been the best spring break for me for many reasons, not the least of which was the global pandemic that is happening around us all. I started my break in a preparation for a medical procedure that did not happen because I seemed to be in a feverish state when it was due to start. I don't think I had a temperature, but the nurses would not listen and I panicked and burst into tears because this meant that all the anxiety and bad dreams and panic attacks have to be rescheduled because I was having a faci...

My "co-worker" looking surprised that I want her to move! I think my anxiety about all of this is starting to subside a bit. I've been watching what all of you all are doing out there, and there are puppies and kittens on the television, so I am starting to come up with scenarios for myself in my job as a music therapist. I'm in an interesting spot. I am a school employee who works within a residential treatment program. About 65% of my clients are residents. The remaining 35% are day students who attend the school only. My paycheck comes from the school district, but the facility contributes to that paycheck. So, my job is more complex than that of the typical school-based music therapist. We have two separate groups of clients that will need interaction and treatment. The focus of most of the administrators at my facility are on our residents. The school has to be a secondary focus at this time because our residents are there all the time. While administrators...

She's SO over all this!! Well, then. It has been quite a strange week in this world. Things have gone from "we'll wait and see" to "cancel EVERYTHING and grab as much toilet paper as you can on the way out!" I was contacted by the Midwestern Region of AMTA this morning that the conference (the one where I was going to be an exhibitor for the very first time - breaking out of my comfort zone and EVOLVING as a business person) has been cancelled. This is both good and bad for me right now. It's good because it is a month away from the event so I know that there are things I can get done - I can cancel my hotel reservation and stop rushing to produce materials to offer. It's bad because I have a large stack of projects already started sitting on my living room floor.  Okay. Today is the first day of my Spring Break. It is my official Spring Break, so my school will be closed this week. My residential clients will still be at the facility, bu...