I’m 60 and I want to change careers. Go for it!
Brenda,
My husband and I separated after 30 years. I have been working for 15 years as a hospice nurse. Now I switched to psychiatric nursing, which I did years ago, because driving to the hospice was so exhausting and expensive.
I am now in my sixties and have no money except what I earn. It would be great to work less since I will never be able to retire. Also I would like a job that would entail less responsibility for people’s lives. It would be great not to return to school. Any ideas? Is it ridiculous to think of a career change now?
Dear Is-It-Ridiculous-To-Think-Of–A-Career-Change-Now,
No, it isn’t ridiculous at all; many people burn out and just want or need a change. No problem with that. However IIRTTOACCN there are some challenges that need to be worked out before you can move forward.
Get a pencil and paper and figure out your basic expenses, rent/mortgage, car, health, food, utilities, debt, and entertainment. Figuring out how much cash you need to live on is key. Then you have to ask yourself where your expenses can be cut?
Can you move into senior housing? That can save you hundreds of dollars and as for your income when applying, the lower the better.
Do you have any kind of health benefits through your employer? Can you apply for a government-sponsored program that might pick up some of your medical expenses?
The most important question though is what do you want to do? Would you like to stay in nursing? Can you take that expertise and move it to another arena? Or would you like to do something different? What is your passion?
I thought AARP.org offered the best resources for seniors looking to change careers or re-enter the workforce.
Good luck! And remember that something spectacular is just around the bend!
- Brenda
Opium in America
Opium Economics.
Animals have personalities too: Think Before You Eat
It is often difficult to put a face to the meat you eat. I love steak, but when I think of a cow who was a part of an animal community, I can’t bear to take another bite. Every single animal that has been cooked or eaten had a unique personality. Let me give you a quick rundown on the personality types of some popular ‘dinner’ animals to give more perspective of what may appear on your dinner table:
- Chickens: Chickens are intelligent animals that are very curious and have even been likened to cats and dogs because of their social qualities. They like to spend time outdoors lying in the sun and roosting.
- Cows: Cows are known to be sweet and incredibly gentle, regardless of their size. They are also very smart and have the understanding to attempt daring escapes from being slaughtered in farms.
- Fish: Surprisingly, fish do feel pain and actually have personalities that make them all as individual as a cat or a dog. Some can be more aggressive, and others have been known to be loners that work well to live in a single home.
- Pigs: Pigs are so smart that many people have them as pets instead of dogs. There are numerous sayings referring to dirty conditions is a pigsty, but pigs themselves love to keep clean and spend time outdoors in the sun.
- Turkeys: Turkeys may seem like just another bird, but they actually like to listen to music and being petted, and they have even been known to sing along!
- Mama
Coffee cups and post-it notes
Today they asked me to organize the collection for the boss’s birthday gift. Sure, I said, I’ll try to fit it in between my bikini wax and my frontal lobotomy. I mean come on people. Do you have any idea what my day’s like?
The alarm jolts me from glorious sedation at 5.45. I hit it for five, then another five, then five too many. Unglue the eyelids, yank the kid out of bed, jump into the shower, shovel breakfast down the kid’s throat, into the traffic, drop kid at school, do make-up in the car, trying not to spill macchiato while steering with my knee.
Into the office and before I’ve even reached my desk I’m dragged into the boardroom – desperately needing a pee – for a meeting that ends two hours later. Hobble out, read emails and learn that the report that was due today… was due at 9. Notice I’ve had three missed calls from the school and that I forgot to eat breakfast. Answer the phone with a mouth full of bagel only to discover that my date of three nights ago – the one I’d kind of given up on – would like to take me out again. Temporary lapse of concentration due to high-speed daydream. Huh? What was that? The deadline’s been pushed forward? No problem, can I offer you a light for that joint you’re smoking?
Diaries to keep. Lists to make. Deadlines to meet. Aaargh, get me off this treadmill. Back into the traffic, pick up kid, shop for dinner, phone call to mother, eat, walk dog, bath, story, bedtime, much-needed glass of wine… Fall asleep on the sofa in front of the TV, wake up at 2.30am, crawl to bed only to wake up 3 hours later, make-up stains on the pillow, and begin all over again.
- Single-again Samantha
Stay! Stay! Ahhh… That’s a Good Girl
Learning not to run away.
“Sit Bell!” I held my two fingers up then brought them down slowly on top of the two fingers of my opposite hand until they resembled legs hanging over the seat of a chair. When I gave the command, my dog sat, her pink tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. I stood right in front of her. “Now staa—aayy.” My voice rolled on this command, and I began to back away. Her bottom started to wiggle the further away I got. I saw her getting anxious, shifting the weight of her two front paws, one to the other. There were sharp yelps as I moved further and further away.
“Staa—aayy.” I said again.
Like most of us, she didn’t believe she was going to be all right. She was waiting for the trick, the pull of the rug that bowls us over, the bucket of no-so-funny that sits atop a doorway ready to spill just as we pull the knob toward us.
The real trick is the ability to simply witness the chaos, the disappointment, the suffering and the pain and not drink, or drug or shop or sex our way through it, it is the ability to bear witness to the ache and splendor that’s life.
Bell breaks as soon as I reach the doorway, her paws skittering over the wood floor. She jumps on my legs, wanting and needing to be petted, reassured that everything would be okay. I reassure her, take her back to the place where started and begin again.
“Take a breath Bell, everything is okay.” I said while I smoothed my hands over her coat.
At one time or another we are all scared or nervous, angry or anxious. We don’t want to stay because we don’t know what the next moment might bring. And then the next moment comes, sometimes bringing death or regret or hurt. Yes, those feelings are large and unwieldy and that’s when you have to pause and admit to yourself what you’re feeling. And yes it is uncomfortable and yes you will want to have a drink or smoke or shop or sex.
Just like Bell, you’ll go skittering towards what will make you feel better.
That’s okay. Those feelings didn’t go anywhere. Now take yourself back to them. Take a breath and sit with them a moment. Those feelings just want to be acknowledged.
Staa—aay. Good.
- Aunt B
Happy meals: A sneak peak into the meat industry
Animals: They need us more than ever
If you cannot take care of your pet, please don’t abandon it. Take it to a local shelter or rescue group who can find a new home for it.
- Mama
Back-to-School. The most wonderful time of the year or not
The Tweenlet can practically look at me in the eye. I can’t stop the physical changes. Her body is crouching toward womanhood and she is ready to spring into this upcoming school year.
What I love and hate about back-to-school
I love the silent discipline of structure to our day
I hate the “registration round-up,” the annual production of various and sundry bills and documents to prove that I live in this town and that my daughter can go to this school, what a pain in the *ss
I love her nervous smile and how she reaches for my hand on the walk to school
I hate how each year her ‘good-byes’ are quicker once we arrive
I love knowing some of her friends since they were in kindergarten and watching them grow
I hate that every year, I think will be the last time we sing the “good-morning song”
I love the smell of sun and sweat in her hair when I pick her up from school
I hate how quickly the years are going by
This is the Tweenlet’s last year of elementary school, the training wheels came off this summer, with sleep-a-way camp and letting her do more things on her own. My daughter is growing up and I’m feeling a bit of the ‘½ empty nest syndrome’.
I moved to this suburb of Los Angeles just so that she could attend one of California’s Distinguished Schools. An honor given “to public schools within the state that best represent exemplary and quality educational programs.” I looked at private schools first, drooling at the fancy curriculums and shiny afterschool programs. The tuition was the brass ring just out of reach. So I moved where I could afford the rent (barely) but the public schools were great. I didn’t know the time would pass so quickly.
How do you feel about back-to-school? Happy the summer is over or kind of melancholy? Did you opt out of public education? Do you home school? Why?
- Aunt B
