Forgetting What I Do

I spent 14 hours working yesterday, most of them sitting in a van or on a ferry, traveling to represent a kid. I got home in time to go to bed and get a full night of sleep before waking up to rush to an early morning meeting back at the annex and then haul ass back to my office and the school to plan a group in five minutes or less. Cranky and dreading doing group, I grabbed a book from my shelf of directives and randomly opened to find something meaningful to do with my guys. Instead I found an old directive and had this thought, "Remember when you were an art therapist? What happened?" In spite of my annoyance at feeling rushed quite literally all over the place, this was surprisingly a happy thought like an old friend who could come visit and make me better at my job.

Sometimes I struggle to feel like an art therapist where I work, because nobody is an art therapist and everybody is an art therapist. I imagine that is not a rare phenomenon when one works with kids: not many people are trained to do art with kids, but everyone does it anyway. If I were to grab that fact and run with it, I could do some great work, take some initiative and shake things up in the best of ways, but other than entertaining thoughts of something better, I have followed along with the flow. That works too, but I am not putting my full self and knowledge to use. Pretty sad.

But the realization of this brought me some comfort. Like things aren't that bad. My kiddos still make progress. We still have some good groups and interventions. I imagined what would happen if I put what I have learned to use with attention and intention. It could be really great. So in that split second I vowed to work with more materials, put more thought into my guys' abilities and figure out how to make interventions make more sense, so the guys get maximum benefit.

I need to bring more of myself to work everyday.