music, therapy, and me

Merry Christmas, to those of us who celebrate, and Happy Wednesday to those of us who do not! It is time to start one of my end-of-the year traditions - recaps and reveals for the next year. Today, let's recap this year a bit. I'm not going to sugarcoat it - 2025 was a rough year for me. The major headline is that my doctors found and then cut out my first bout with colon cancer. I am hoping that preventative colonoscopies will keep me from having to lose any more of my bowel (I've already had over 2 feet of large intestine surgically removed), but we will see. My grandmother died of complications with colon cancer and a work acquaintance of mine also recently passed away from the same thing, so this has been on my mind this year. I did not go on any trips this year. This is unusual since we (my Mom, my Sister, and I) are starting to take summer trips as a unit. Instead, due to the aforementioned cancer, my Sister, Mom, and Aunt came to my house to help me through my first ...

I have seven more work days before the end of the calendar work year. At this time last year, we were working without client contact. This year, we are getting ready to host a local middle school group for their "Jingle Jam" because people in my work area do not believe that COVID is a big deal anymore. I am still not convinced and am not doing our own holiday event because of COVID. I do not want to be the one who starts another breakout at my facility because someone is singing and spreading virus particles everywhere. I admit that I am still scared of this virus, but I am more scared of the people who are not scared of this virus. COVID feelings notwithstanding, I am looking forward to the end of this calendar year. It has been a doozy for me. Again, I am not the type of person who believes that a man-made time construct will automatically change all the things happening in my life, but there is something nice about knowing that the end of the year is approaching. I am tir...