It’s been nearly 3 years since I last published a blog post — the longest I’ve been away since 2009 — and goodness have I missed this space. But every time I’ve contemplated coming back to it, I’ve suffered a bit of an identity crisis. Music therapy and songwriting are no longer at the center of my professional world. SO MUCH has changed since I last blogged here. My life, and the world as a whole, is different, but what hasn’t changed is my desire to share through words.
So I started a Substack. I wanted to have the freedom to write about anything and everything, beginning with my recent journey to becoming a mental health counselor. You might already be subscribed, but if not, I would love for you to join me there! Here’s an excerpt from my inaugural post, the rest of which is available (completely free) right here.
Grad school, the first time around, was a means to an end. I only cared about one single thing: getting my masters degree in music therapy so that I could start my “real life”. I was freshly 21 years old and already felt like I was behind the curve (even though I had graduated from college a year and a half early and was much younger than most of my new cohort). While I’m tossing out clichés, I might as well add that “youth is wasted on the young”.
Almost 3 years later, I was a board-certified music therapist with my first grown-up job and ready to leave the classroom behind forever. My mom started working on her doctoral degree shortly after, at the tail end of her 40s, and I simply could not fathom the thought of going back to school. Never in a million years. I was more than happy to proofread her papers and listen to her talk about her research, all the while thinking how happy I was that school was a thing of my past.
I got married. Bought a house. Started businesses. Had children. Traveled to cool places. Life was good, to say the least. From time to time, I wondered what else might be out there for me, but I was comfortable…and why fix what isn’t broken? Then, in March of 2020, the WORLD broke.
The pandemic changed a lot of things for a lot of people, and I was no exception. After about a year of weathering the storm, I started thinking the unthinkable: maybe I should go back to school. The idea of becoming a mental health counselor had floated into my brain at some point, and I couldn’t shake it.
So after a quick consultation with my mom (an experienced midlife student and now full-time professor) and my husband, I applied to the masters program in human development counseling at the University of Illinois Springfield and was admitted in the fall of 2021.
