If 2020 was a gift, I would wrap it in the ugliest, most depressing design of wrapping paper. No bow, no frills, and as a matter of fact, no tape either. Just stuck together with some chewed up gum at the corners where the folds of paper meet – not to mention, no less than three big tears, like when you accidentally tug too hard and the result is irreparable, but you act like you can hide it under tape or patch it with another piece of paper. Yeah. 2020 was THAT gift that if you saw it before it came, you would have looked the other direction. It’s been one for the books, and mostly not in a good way.
Although that gift is rough around the edges like Santa’s last minute effort to deliver his drunken elves work down a chimney with the fireplace still burning the midnight oil… sometimes what comes of it is a bigger lesson and a bigger blessing than the ones with all the frills.
If it weren’t for 2020… If it weren’t for COVID… things would look very different.
Tattletales had a name before 2020 began, but it didn’t have anything but a few paragraphs strung together. Now it is a book, the beginnings of a community and service organization, and a growing resource center.
Breaking the fourth wall, well I had credentials at the start of this year, but I was actively running from my job. Any and everything outside of those lobby doors looked like fuzz and frill and fun…
Work was work, and life was life. I was determined to live them as separately as possible.
Yet, today, I find myself toppling task over task, most of which have a similar foundation in my work. But I’m loving it. I’m finally proud to be a speech-language pathologist. It’s a funny thing, but the more I lived life away from my job, the better I was able to give to myself from a work perspective. I deduced that the only way to make it come full circle was to learn what my needs were, and have the work follow.
Heck yeah, there’s a long way to go. If there’s anything 2020 has taught me, it’s that good things take time. Inevitably. Uncomfortably.
So I welcome 2021 with open arms and a few items on my bucket wish list. Most of all, I wish to see curious but hesitant post-grads learn how to love this field – to help build a recipe for success. We bring so much to the table, in such a unique way. I want that to be noticeable, to be a source of pride, and to ultimately elevate everything we touch.
Cheers to the undergrad and graduate students, clinical fellows, licensed clinicians, researchers, directors, private practitioners, and leaders that make the SLP world go ’round.
You are somebody’s hero.
Tattletales of a Speech-Language Pathologist 