Reinvention; It's a Process

Being unemployed on sabbatical for the past several months, I have experienced a variety of emotions. Joy, fear, happiness, loneliness, hope, confusion, fatigue, and many others. In an earlier post I mentioned burnout, and I had problems with my knee which forced me to do a lot of sitting, icing, and reading. I read several articles about reinvention and how "older workers" were doing that more as they left careers behind (for a variety of reasons), or after admitting they were no longer happy with their current employment, just wanted to do something different.  So I gave that some thought.

Have you read the book "Eat, Pray, Love"?  If you have you will remember when she tried learning to meditate.  I laughed while reading what she had to say because I have had the same trouble "quieting my mind". Well, reinventing myself has been a similar experience.  For one thing, I have never known what I wanted to be when I grew up.  All of my jobs found me. Seriously. I was a stay at home mom for many years and did odd jobs to bring in a little money, but a career?  Eventually, as my kids developed health and learning problems I volunteered to attend some meetings and speak at a conference, and a career just sort of evolved over time. A rather intense career that I learned from and that introduced me to many resources and people I still value today. During that time, I decided to go to college.  I was 47 when I started and 51 when I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Management, thousands of dollars in student loans, and a satisfaction that I finally completed a degree program that would help me earn the kind of money that people with initials behind their names earned.

Now I am trying to put the knowledge I gained to good use. It is important to identify what I am most passionate about. Well that is a "no-brainer" ~ my granddaughter ~ but unfortunately I need more than a beautiful child's love to pay off my student loans. The funny thing is that everything I list all circles back to one thing.  Helping people, specifically, the underdog.

So now all I have to figure out is ~ which underdog am I most passionate about?

It's so much easier to play with my little friend.

Avery playing Peek-A-Boo with Gaga.