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20:30 - Nov. 09, 2007
in regards to my future
i'm burnt out on hospice work and i don't like it. i've lost the magic of it; the realization of the sacred nature of what i get paid to do. lately it's been just a job - i drive between 300 and 500 miles a week, playing guitar and singing to people in their homes and in nursing homes, trying to lessen their isolation, provide opportunitites for life review and spiritual comfort, helping the patients ease out of this world and help prepare their families for the impending loss of their loved one. and i've lost touch with the meaning in all of this; it's just a job. i drive, i unpack my guitar, i ask what songs they like and begin singing. i ask the right questions, use the right interventions, spend the right amout of time and leave. i drive to the next patient and do it all over again, i go to team meetings and discuss the patient's needs with the nurses and social workers, chaplain and doctor i work with, drive home and the next day do it all again. it's become just a job for me.it was different in my internship, and when i first came here. the learning was so intense - therapeutically, musically, interpersonally, professionally and personally... it was still sacred work, even if only at a personal level. but now... i don't like it. hospice isn't just a job; not for me, it shouldn't be. my music therapy boss believes it is; she said one day "i don't see all this stuff about being 'called' to do hospice work - it's just work!" and i disagree. i disagree that being a kind of midwife for persons leaving this world, and supporting their families through it, is "just a job". i never wanted to get to the place where i forgot what meaning is inherently in what i do; i never wanted to reach this place i am now. call it desensitization or burn-out, whatever, i never wanted to reach this place.so maybe i really am getting ready to leave this job. as time wears on, i'm missing luis more and more and less and less all at once. i read tonight that grief isn't a process, or something to pass through but rather it's a testament to love; a beautiful, if excruciating, statement and testament to one's love for another. and that makes complete sense to me as i sit here, and as i remember my feelings after returning from his country. you know, more and more i think about being there with him. we didn't get engaged or have any kind of formal breakthrough, but something shifted into place in our relationship. it was the last time, and the only time, we were together day and night and we became united. life and luis and i were the same, and leaving him was like leaving some necessary part of me. but i also learned how to make my life on my own, while keeping him always in my heart and my dreams. i am my own person, clear and independent and inherently whole. but my life is not complete without him. even now i'm thinking about leaving earlier than i thought. i'm thinking about selling this house, although i don't think i will. what's changed is now i'm willing to do anything it takes to be there. with luis is where my heart is... maybe that's why it's not in my work anymore. my heart is there with him, and my dreams encompass finishing my master's in musicology and eventually a family. my time here is drawing close - maybe only a few months; as early as april. i'll leave as soon as i save up enough money to live with luis a few monts out of the summer, visit his country again, and not be peniless when my program begins in august. i'd find a small job to do while living up there with him. maybe i'd even continue volunteering at a hospice there.life moves on, doesn't it? especially when you're young... all these dreams and plans and hopes... i'm so fortunate to have all of this; this rich life. and maybe it's okay i've lost touch with the numinous, sacred nature of hospice - i've found it in my future.
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