Dreams, Plans, and Transitions
I am happy to take this opportunity to tell those who have not heard that I will be retiring from my teaching position at the University of Louisville at the end of this academic year, the end of May 2011. This is an exciting point in my life—and the beginning of a big transition. Writing this column presents an opportunity for me to reflect on what it means to me and how it relates to other events in my professional and personal life.
First the dreams. I have always wanted to live by the ocean. When I was a girl, I lived in Wyoming (in the middle of the U.S.) and collected sea shells. I ordered them from a company in Florida. I remember eagerly awaiting their arrival, always imagining what it would be like to actually be near the ocean where they had been collected. I had not ever seen the ocean at that time. My first visit to the ocean was in high school when I played violin in the All Northwest Orchestra and traveled with some other students to Oregon. My next was when I attended Florida State University to study music therapy. In all honesty, the main reason that I chose to attend FSU was that it was located within easy driving distance of the Gulf of Mexico, giving me my first opportunity to spend time regularly at the this great body of water. One of the reasons that I moved to New Jersey in 1975 and was very happy there for 25 years was that I was able to go to the ocean often. The place that I will retire to is a condominium that I purchased a few years ago and is located just around the corner from the Atlantic Ocean, at the Jersey Shore. This will allow me to spend time each day by the ocean, if I want to. It will truly be my dream come true!
Now to my plans. I am not sure what I will do when I retire. I do plan to remain active professionally but do not expect to be nearly as busy as I am now! I continue to believe strongly in music therapy and do not think that my contribution is complete. In addition, of course, I have many music therapy friends and colleagues and do not want to lose touch with them. I am not sure exactly how my professional work will evolve after I retire from teaching. I have some commitments to teach in other countries and certainly plan to continue them. I expect that I will do some writing and perhaps editing. I hope that people will continue to ask me to review and give feedback on various types of writing. I will continue my involvement with Voices. I hope that I will continue to be asked to present about my work. Retirement will give me more time and flexibility, which may lead to more opportunities to contribute. One of the interesting things about this upcoming time is exactly how it will evolve in these ways.
And the transitions. I will go through many transitions in the next few years. The obvious ones are from living in Kentucky to living in New Jersey and from teaching full-time to doing other things. I will be leaving dear friends and colleagues in Kentucky and moving to a town in NJ in which I have no friends, so hopefully I will make friends there. I will probably have less money than I do now, although I hope that I have planned well and will have enough. I will have more time, I hope, although many people who are retired seem to wonder how they ever had time to work. These are the transitions that I can anticipate. I wonder what others will occur that I do not have in my mind at this point.
Application to Others
What does all of this have to do with music therapy and with those who will read this column? Of course, I am glad to share these things with those who are interested. I also hope to relate them to the experiences of other music therapists.
Many of us find our careers in music therapy to be very rewarding and view music therapy as more than just a job. I am not sure at what point this occurred to me, but I am much more aware of how much I value this now than I would have been earlier in my career. For those who may not have thought of this, I encourage you to compare your feelings about your work with those of some of your colleagues. Although, of course, I know that this is not everyone’s experience, I think that many will find that their feelings about their work are very different than are those of many others.
I have had, and continue to have, amazing experiences due to my involvement in music therapy. I have regular contact with friends and colleagues from around the world, not only through e-mail and other electronic means but also through visiting in person. I did a presentation last year on international aspects of music therapy, and someone asked me if I would have thought early in my career that I would get to visit so many countries. My answer was an emphatic “no”—it would never have occurred to me. I would like to make the point that many of these opportunities—certainly the ability to be active with electronic communications around the world—are available to all music therapists, although taking advantage of them requires initiative.
Working in music therapy is an incredible privilege. It allows us to be involved with people in important areas of their lives and to help them as they deal with significant issues. I am grateful to have spent my “working” career as a music therapist—and now look forward to spending my retirement with continuing involvement, although in different ways.
How to cite this page
Wheeler, Barbara (2010). Dreams, Plans, and Transitions. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 15, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=colwheeler011110
About Barbara Wheeler
Biography
BARBARA WHEELER, PhD, MT-BC has been Professor and Director of Music Therapy at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, since 2000. She came to that position after 25 years on the faculty of Montclair State University in New Jersey. Her clinical work has been with children and adults with a variety of problems; she currently works on a hospital oncology unit. She edited the books Music Therapy Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives and Music Therapy Research, 2nd Edition, coauthored Clinical Training Guide for the Student Music Therapist, and has written a number of articles and chapters. Wheeler is President of the American Music Therapy Association. She is Interview Co-Editor for Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Barbara frequently speaks and consults about music therapy both in the U.S. and abroad.