I’m super irregular. I can go for months at a time without bleeding, and it doesn’t concern me since there’s nothing to worry about, unless I’m scheduled to bear Baby Jesus, the second coming.

I was discussing with my sister though, the sneakiness of that dot, Aunt Flo, who, instead of calling to warn me of her surprise visit, simply floods me with despondence that my brain likes to rationalize, by creating ideas to be sad about. Things that normally don’t bother me, do. I get sad. I mull over everything that’s wrong with me. I analyze interpersonal relationships and wonder why, why, why is everything in my life so awful and not-worky.

Then, blood in my drawers.

And I am reminded once again not to take my feelings too too seriously. But no matter how many times you tell yourself not to take your feelings seriously, you still have to feel them. And sometimes, while you are feeling your feelings, your brain has to make up reasons for them. Even though feelings are just made out of chemicals, acting and reacting. Feelings aren’t made out of the things people do, or how badly I play the violin.

Everything around me right now is about learning. Learning to choose optimism, learning how to write a college paper in proper form, learning which bills I can ignore and which ones to put on which credit card. Learning how to deal with a stubborn, defiant, surly, reactive, talented, sweet, funny, and brilliant, among a million other things, daughter. Learning how to reconnect with her when I’ve barely seen her for 4 days, and she is hell-bent on getting the attention she craves no matter if it’s negative or positive. Learning how to decide which classes to register for (you mean I’m responsible for keeping track of my degree requirements!?), and learning how to study. Learning how to keep my feelings of crushing pressure at bay so I can achieve big things.

But. There are doubts. I miss the way things were, the where I’ve been. I’ve set aside some dreams so I could reach further back and dust off an even older dream. I am behind. I was supposed to do this before I became a mother. I KNOW there are different paths, and I KNOW I’m on the right one for me….but those little chemicals fire at will and I feel what I feel.

I feel alone. Quite thoroughly out of place and at odds wherever I go. I’ve connected with a few people at school, but there is a huge bubble around me, I put it there and it needs to be there so I can focus, but it is pretty isolating as well. SPU is a small school and most of the students there are away at college for the first time, living in dorms and living their whole selves on campus. I can see them getting close together while I still just show up when I need to be in class, and then disappear as quickly as possible. I’m lonely because I have more in common with some of the professors than with most of the students. But academically, I’m twenty again. I feel the most authentic when I’m trading parenting stories with the professors, and I feel like a cheater when I do well on tests. I got one of the high scores on my psych exam, which was graded on a curve, and before I could get too proud of myself, a little voice told me, of course I did well, I’m a 30 year old woman in a freshman level psych class.

Basically that voice is coming from the meanest part of my soul. When I do well on something, it reminds me that I am feeling proud for accomplishing what 18 year olds are expected to accomplish. When I do poorly, it snaps at me because I have no excuse, and because I’m going further into debt for this than ever before.

The doubts pile up. I could go into and into and into them, and obviously that is my first instinct. The thing is, my doubts are behemoth, lumbering zombies. They are deaf and dumb  and absolutely terrifying, but I can outrun them. As long as they don’t amass too deep or high or whatever form of space they overtake. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing and God is not speaking very loudly to me, or very often. I don’t know if I’m a good person or a total asshole, I suspect both most of the time. I do and say stupid things that I cringe about later, or assume that a professor has judged me for. I can’t stop saying things in class, even when my crickets say “close your mouth, child. put down that hand.”

But. Here is what I do have.

I have a handful of moments, that I set aside for times of enormous, crushing doubt. There are moments when people cried when I played my violin. A disabled girl volunteering in our class held her head up and looked me in the eye for a long time, which her caregiver told me had NEVER happened in the 13 years she’d been working with her. That memory turned to agate.  There’s a moment when a baby stopped crying after I placed his hand on the speaker and played a song with a strong heartbeat. Then there’s a new moment, from a recording of an old Nordoff and Robbins Creative Music Therapy session. It’s my favorite source of encouragement right now.

I know I’ve rambled on and on but if you’re still with me, I think this is the whole reason I sat down to write this blog. Because this new moment, in the recording, is the best way I know how to explain why I want to learn Music Therapy.

Session one: We are introduced to the child in the text. He is 4 or 5, still in diapers, at a daycare center for psychotic children. He is nearly impossible to communicate with, because he throws tantrums with little or no provocation, that last for hours. He is not expected to learn to talk. (this is only what I remember from the introduction. probably not entirely accurate.)

in the recording, The child is screaming. Bloodcurdling screams. Screams that are impossible to listen to. (I am literally clinging to my desk, trying not to cry.) Nordoff is on the piano, playing music which matches the pitch and intensity of the child’s cries. Robbins plays drums, in time with the child as he jumps and stomps on the floor. The screams continue. (they are so intense and so disturbing, that we all feel the powerlessness that must haunt this child’s grownups.)

We skipped ahead to the 9th session with this child. He was singing, “Hel-lo” with the therapists. His voice was full of light, his voice was bells. He was laughing, and making up little riffs which the therapists mirrored back to him on the piano and drums. All three were laughing, and there was a tangible sense of joy.

That’s the general memory, but it fits in the palm of my hand as one clear sound: “Hel-lo!”

Magic.

Music is magic.

And if music is magic, and i can make music, then i can learn to make magic. I’ve stumbled over it by accident, plenty of times in my experiences as a mother and teacher, but there is a method behind it. I never wished for musical powers but I spent a lot of childhood dreaming about magical powers. When my professor asks, in the spring, for our reasons for pursuing this career, I can either write things about serving humanity, helping people with my gifts, and making a difference in people’s lives while practicing my own musicianship….or I can be completely honest and say that I want this because it is the best way I know how to develop a superpower, and it’s about time I started being a superhero. I want to be able to bring “Hel-lo!” out of the darkest corners of life, and turn bloodcurdling screams into tinkling peals of laughter.

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