I started having kids in my very early twenties, I sort of short changed my young adulthood. I wasn't the girl going out to parties and staying up all night. Well, I was, but not for long. My first child was born when I was 21. I was a single mother. Everything I thought I was going to do and had planned for in my head, came to a screeching halt. I then proceeded to have three more children, and one divorce, over the next six years. Now, here I am, in my forties, feeling like a teenager all over again. Not because I'm reliving my lost youth, but because I have found myself as a middle aged lady with not a lot of substantial work experience under my belt. I may as well be 18 again. When potential employers interview me, (if I can even get an interview), they always look perplexed as to why I have had so many odd jobs over the years. Some wildly different from the others. From a sales clerk at the mall, to a manicurist at every salon in town, to a paralegal for a well known law firm. Interviewers want to know..."Who are you? And why are you applying here to be a research assistant?".....nothing makes any sense. I'm all over the road when it comes to employment. And that may very well be because I have always had to jump around from job to job, taking whatever came my way. Sometimes the hours sucked, more often, the pay rate sucked, lack of experience, boredom with the job itself etc. etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty smart. I just put my life on hold so I could raise my children. So I always ended up with mediocre jobs that went nowhere.
Now to get to the point of the story.......my mother would always tell me that I have plenty of time to get my career in order. Once the kids are grown, you can focus on yourself......blah, blah, blah. Here's the kicker....now that my kids are grown and now I'm in my mid forties, most employers think I'm a fruit loop for being such a job hopper for the last twenty years and hesitate to hire me, (I think a majority of the people in my age group have been working in the same field for many years at this point in their lives, which explains why they get the job offers and I don't), and I certainly don't want to incur more student loan debt than I already have by going back to school, so what do I do? Where do I go from here? Well, after much anguishing and internal soul searching, I have come to the conclusion that I am a late bloomer. I am really just starting out on my career path and that is okay. It has to be okay. There really is no other option but to keep going forward. I'm sure I'm not the only one. As a matter of fact, my chosen career may depend on it.
I know just how it feels to be standing at the split in the road, not really sure which path to take. If you go to the left, maybe that is wrong and you'll be sorry, again. But how do you know if taking the path on the right is the correct way? How can you even be sure your smart enough to make a rational decision for yourself that won't eventually blow up in your face? What if your middle aged and you still don't have a clue about what career you even want?!! I know just how you feel. It is hard and incredibly stressful to think that the decision you make today, may be one you will have to live with until you get to retirement age. So we put so much pressure on ourselves to make a great and appropriate career choice. Too much pressure. So much so that we, I know I did, become paralyzed and sometimes end up not making any choice at all.
So....I'm still working on that "choice". I've narrowed down my options to something in the healing and helping others category. What that will be, I still don't know.
"Your crown has been bought and paid for. All you must do is put it on" - James Baldwin
No comments:
Post a Comment