The Actual Last Job Ever
One of these days, I’m going to quit this job.
Okay, we’ve all said that, but I’ve got a little different bend here — — one of these days is going to be my last day of having to work at a job, period, and I fully expect this job is my last.
It hardly seems true to me, either. I started working at age 12. No, I wasn’t some sweatshop kid; I was in my element. $1.00 a week to shelve books in my local library. Spent my time in the stacks dreaming over the books I wanted to check out (I wasn’t allowed to read romance novels yet — — I mean, come on, at 16, my parents chaperoned me and my best friend to a revival screening of “Gone with the Wind” because it had that staircase scene in it. I saw “Portnoy’s Complaint” the next year, btw. Yeah. Parents not in the audience.)
So, my first job was fun. And my second was frosting donuts in a donut shop, so kinda fun until I realized one can only take so much chocolate frosting. Worked in a book repair shop in college, restoring old books. There was the Greek restaurant where I waitressed, the veterans’ group secretarial job (it was still called secretarial back then) where I learned about the true cost of the Vietnam War in lost limbs and lost minds. Bartending helped me gain a social life when I moved to a new neighborhood, and I’m still Facebook friends with that wild crowd.
Then, somehow, I ended up working on Capitol Hill in DC, supplemented income with more bartending, and moved into the most unlikely career for a college English major — IT.
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The rest — from 1-gig server in the closet to the Cloud, shall we just say.
I’ve got a few more years in the workforce, but recently something has shifted in my consciousness. My kids are grown. Not entirely independent, but stretching there and Mama’s glad to talk to them regularly, even if it’s about insurance rates. I’m divorced, unfettered and good with it. No Prince Charming need apply right now. My house is my own and I can continue to afford it. I find I don’t eat as much as when we were a full family of four, surprisingly, though I occasionally forget and pack that freezer out of habit. I have a wonderful local bar when they treat everyone, regardless of age or opinion, as their best friend, and I stop in a couple of times a month with my own pals. All can be carried forward into “retirement.”
I’m still working.
But what is next?
“Oh, travel!” friends say. “Move to another part of the country, nearer your kids — -grandkids someday! Think of all the time you’ll have to finish up those sewing projects and all those books on your nightstand! Do a Swedish death purge! Take up golf! Train for a 5K!” (Umm… no.)
While the appeal of a perpetual vacation sounds great when I’m still getting home from work at 7:30 pm —I’m not sure I can sustain it. I need a plan. No, actually, I need a vision. What do I want my life to look like? For the first time, I will not be hurtling from job events to life events and back. There are actually choices I can make? Phhtt! Mind blown.
Who do I want to be now that I’m grown up?
