2012 Goes Out With A Bang

The past month has kicked my butt.

I quit my job and decided to go back to school and that means we’ll be a single income family and I’ll technically be a stay-at-home mom.

Scared out of my freaking mind

If that weren’t enough, the tragedy in Newtown damn near broke me. Still unable to talk about that without crying and there are certainly many others who’ve honored the victims and families much more eloquently than I’m able to so I’m keeping quiet. For now.

When I found out that my job was most likely going to be eliminated sometime in the next several months I did what I imagine most middle-age women would do – I cried.

Not because I’ve got a dream job, I mean the job itself is OK but I love the organization. I work (for 11 more days) at a community college. I love being able to see students changing their lives and their families lives through education.

Anyway, times are tough all over and I don’t like to waste time feeling sorry for myself so I made a list of my options. Because that’s the other thing middle-age women do – make lists. Mine looked something like this:

  • Keep my job until it’s actually eliminated and then look for a job
  • Quit now and look for a job
  • Quit now and get a master’s degree
  • Quit now, go back to school and start a career in a new field

All were scary options. But the scariest and most exciting was the last one. And because I’m married to an amazing man, he agreed and supports my decision to get crazy brave (for me anyway) and go for it.

Going back to school

Courtesy of FrameAngel at freedigitalphotos.net

Obviously, (I hope it’s obvious!) education is important to me and so I’m putting my money, time, and energy where my mouth is and heading back to school in January for 15 hours of online classes in the healthcare field. Yikes!

There is a bright side

Since all the classes are online I’ll be able to pick my daughter up from school and spend at least an additional three hours a day with her. That scares me, too. But I’m looking forward to finally being able to really focus on all the enrichment activities that we’ve wished we could do but logistically just couldn’t make happen.

And, I hope to set an example for my daughter. I truly believe that learning is a lifetime endeavor and while I thoroughly enjoyed getting my Sociology degree some 20 years ago and still believe in the inherent value of a liberal arts education, sometimes it’s just not enough. You’ve got to keep up with the times.

Working at a college means I knew I needed to upgrade my skills in order to keep myself employable so I’m not too surprised to find myself in this situation – I’m in pretty good company with millions of other folks in similar situation across the globe.

Quite frankly, this is still a big-old first world problem. I have the luxury of not working while going to school; I have a roof over my head and food on the table. Most importantly, I have a husband and daughter to support me.

So, I may be scared out of my freaking mind but my heart overflows with gratitude and I count my blessings every day.

3 Responses

  1. Good luck to you and congrats for being brave and taking a leap of faith. May 2013 bring you all that you wish for and more.

Trackbacks

  1. […] that there really is no time like right now to get on with life’s to do list.  Here’s the list that helped me decide on this […]

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