"Doing" might be as far as I get

So, I've been asked to reflect on the emotions surrounding my participation in the art of crochet. I believe in order to do this, I need to give a little background on what the past week has been like, and just maybe put into words what most of us are all feeling. If this happens to come off as a rant, ignore that. This is just occupational science at its finest.

Being in a master's program is supposed to be hard. I get that. Anything worth doing is usually going to push your limits and make you leave your comfort zone. As I once heard, there is no room for growth in a comfort zone, and there is no room for comfort in a growth zone. However, I would venture to say that it gets a little out of hand when:

• You can't remember for sure the last time you showered, but you know it's been at least two days.
• You're laundry pile is nearly sky high.
• You've been sleeping on the couch for the past week and a half because you don't have time to clean off your bed.
• The stack of dishes gets out of control and you have to make time to do just a couple every day, hoping the stack will get smaller.
• Shaving your legs becomes a luxury.
• You forget to eat because you don't have the time to make anything, and you're not really sure what groceries you have anyway since you never look at them anymore.

Are you getting my point? Oh and throw sleep deprivation in there somewhere too. So, let's leave the self-care aspect of this out for a moment and just consider those extra things that add meaning to our lives. 

Mine would be piano. I LOVE playing the piano. I don't even remember the last time I just sat and played a piano, or my guitar, and if you asked me to define myself, piano player used to be the very first thing that came to mind. Because don't we often define ourselves by the things we do? What happens when you can't do those things anymore? And how am I supposed to feel like a person who understands meaning, despite the endless amount of articles I continuously read on the subject, if I'm not even sure where the meaning in my own life is anymore? Or is that the point of occupational therapy school? Let's just drain the meaning from my life so I can better relate to patients and clients I will someday treat who aren't sure where the meaning in their lives is anymore either. 

I swear, I just might need to see an occupational therapist.

Okay. I'm done. I guess I could sum that all up by just saying, "I'm kind of a wreck and I've been really busy," but "busy" isn't emotion. Busy drains the emotion from your day. Meaningful occupation is what feeds emotion; it's what makes all the "busy work" worth it. That's where crocheting comes in! Or whatever little occupation feeds your soul and just makes life better. 

This week I continued working on my monster, and honestly I've been busy enough that I was fighting to even just get one more row stitched before going to bed at night. I felt like that was all I could allow myself to do. However, I did take it with me while I was babysitting one night, and after putting the kids to bed I was able to just crochet my heart away while watching an episode of Monk. That was nice. At this point I've done as much as my friend, Angela, has told me to do, so I just need to go to her for more instruction. It doesn't resemble a monster at all yet, but it's still looking pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself. 

I know I've been throwing the word "occupation" around a lot, and most people think of it as a job. While that is partly true, let me try to clear up how occupational therapists define the word, and everything might make a little more sense. Actually, the definition isn't even that clear within the field of occupational therapy, however, Hasselkus (2011) makes an effort to bring the varying definitions together and clear up the confusion. My favorite definition refers to occupation as anything we do to occupy our time. It's short, it's sweet, it makes sense. Another definition that I like states that occupation is "engagement in self-initiated, self-directed, adaptive, purposeful, culturally relevant, organized activity." Other definitions follow the same thread, but add in that occupation is something you do daily. I would argue that the first two definitions are more correct due to the fact that something you do occasionally, in my opinion, is just as much an occupation as something you do daily. The daily occupations become a central focus in the occupational therapy profession, but do I really crochet every day? No. Do I clean my bathroom every day? No. Do I do laundry every day? No. But those things are just as much an occupation as brushing my teeth, sleeping, walking... etc. Therefore, those definitions which define an occupation as a daily activity would not, in my opinion, be correct. That being said, perhaps there are some people who clean their bathroom every single day, making it a daily occupation; and there are those people who brush their teeth once a week. Gross. I suppose it just varies person to person. 

Hasselkus (2011) also points out the themes identified as those which facilitate survival and health. The formula is as follows: doing + being, becoming, belonging = survival and health. And how does this apply to crocheting? I'm not really sure yet. I'm doing... but I feel the being, becoming, and belonging part is lacking. And really, I'm not sure how crocheting is going to make my endeavor for survival and health any easier, but, I can easily see how for someone else who maybe relies on it for leisure, income, stress relief, or as part of a social network would be able to advance to that part of the calculation. Maybe someday I'll get there.

Right now I'm too busy trying to figure out how to turn "busy work" into "meaningful occupation."

Yours Truly 

References

Hasselkus, B.R. (2011). The meaning of every day occupation. Thorofare, NF: SLACK.