I'm not sure exactly when it happened. For a long time, I loved my job. It generally involved sitting in front of a computer screen in a home office and typing all day, but I got to use my gray matter, learn new things, and most importantly, point out the window with a Nelson Muntz-like "HA ha!" when the snow was coming down fast and furious and everyone else had to drive to work in it.
I should have realized something was up when I tore my adductor last year and couldn't even sit in front of the computer for days--and didn't miss it at all. I ended up working reduced hours all summer. I should have been concerned about the hit to my income, if nothing else, but I just couldn't muster the energy.
Fall rolled around, and I went to my professional organization's annual conference, just as I have for the last 15 years. It's my favorite week of the whole year, hands down. I presented, as I have for the last 5 or 6 years in a row, and thoroughly enjoyed being around 1000+ colleagues. There's a wonderful energy there that always seems to motivate me for the year to come.
But this year, the effect wore off after just a few days back in my isolated home office. I struggled on, knowing something was wrong, wanting to take my life in a new direction, but not knowing what direction that was. I felt burned out and joyless. Even a big December snowstorm failed to cheer me up.
And then came The Diaphragm Pull. It was February, and I was coughing hard enough to make the walls rattle and the floors shake for over a week due to a sinus infection. Apparently I managed to pull my diaphragm, which expressed its displeasure by spasming and subjecting me to the most excruciating pain I have ever felt (and I've had migraines since I was a kid, so that's really saying something). The PA I saw suggested massage therapy since my back was "one giant knot." It required five visits to an LMT to untangle, so the massage therapist and I got pretty chatty with each other.
"You remind me so much of my sister-in-law," he said one day, and then added hastily off my alarmed look: "No, I like my sister-in-law!" I asked what she did for a living, and he said she was a marriage and family therapist. I said I was thinking about switching careers myself and had considered something along that line. When I got home, I looked it up on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. It sounded pretty good, but the first entry under "Related Occupations" caught my eye: Occupational Therapist. I clicked on it. The clouds parted and I may have heard faint harp music. Working with people? Talking to them, listening to them? And using my creativity and problem-solving abilities to help them learn or re-learn how to do the things that mattered most to them? While getting paid good money and enjoying abundant job opportunities? DING! It sounded almost too good to be true. I spent the rest of the afternoon glued to the computer, reading everything I could find about occupational therapy (usually referred to as OT for short), and when my husband got home from work that night, I announced, "I think I've found my new career!"
That day was quite literally the beginning of the road to OTR for me. I'll pick up from there on my next entry. I probably won't post every day, but hope to get in at least 2-3 entries a week.
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