“Am I Needy?”

I started this blog because I have had a lot of questions about my life recently. I have been wondering where it is going.  Am I happy with what I am doing today? There is a book I love called “If Life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits” by Erma Bombeck. This title always made me laugh and is one of my favorites. Just the right amount of sarcasm, reality and antidotes when you are young and raising a family. But now that I am older and over 50 what is next for me?

I love helping others with their questions and I will be doing some of that but need to work on my self-help issues first. I am hoping to work through my pivot to my next chapter in life with your help.

So, I am done with the career I started with after 25 years, I am part of the ageism group now and thought I would be able to get a compatible job due to my experience and time served. It of course has not worked out that way. I found myself in a job that I do not like, making way less money and in the same field I was in for 25 years and originally thought, I just need to get my foot in the door and I can move up. Where I have seen some women be able to do this, it seems I cannot. I think I just need to put myself into this job and do it the best I can. Learn everything I can in this job and that will help me move up the ladder. Did you know when you’re in your 20’s and starting a career and moving up the ladder has a really different meaning then when your 50+ trying to do the same thing?

When I started in my 20’s my boss was older and suppose to be wiser than I was. Today, nope he is like 12 and has a lot left to learn. Boy sometimes I would love to teach him a lesson, but he is young so in my experience trying to teach the young when they do not want to learn is like, you know…pulling teeth. No thank you, he can learn his own lessons I have my own issues to deal with.

So in reading a couple more self help books trying to figure out what is wrong with me and spending way to much time on Facebook or the internet, I asked my family what they think I should look at for a pivot and they were all like, something on the computer and writing. Because you love to spend time doing both.

So, I sat down with my self-help book telling me I can do anything I put my mind to. That 50 is the new 30 (tell that to my pain ridden body) and that I can do anything if I believe in myself. I just need to reinvent who I am because so much of my identity is wrapped up in my family and career. Both have moved on. I cannot look to the past to make me happy. I have to look forward to the future at 50 being the new 30, with experience of a 50 year old and what do I want to do with that?

I have many questions and the first one is, what is going to bring me to the name of my first blog? “Am I Needy?”

My family says I am needy. I’m not sure if this is the case or not. I’ve spent much of my adult life taking care of everyone in my family. My husband and my two daughters have been the center of my world for the last 32 years. I have catered to them, taken care of them, made sure they have gotten what they needed. I have been fully committed in this partnership. I had a full-time job that I really liked for over 20 years and one day it was simply gone. You get up every morning, get the kids out of bed, ready for daycare, then school, then teen alien issues to graduation (You hope) and eventually you kick them out of the nest to start their lives. You teach them manners, ethics, how to cook and clean and how to manage a budget and a check book. Not that they really listen because they don’t know how to save a penny, but they have a lot of love in their hearts that you didn’t see until they were doing it on their own. Their life lessons learned and now they must go through the same things I did, and I get to observe how all my lessons and hard work plays out.

As I have gotten older, I have slowed down some. I don’t move as much, and I ask for help a lot more than I used to. Does this make me needy? My kids think so. I went to enlist their help with explaining some of my qualities as part of my self-help pivot to my next chapter. I asked them both at different times in different places “what they think my qualities are” and they both said, Loving, dedicated and Needy! I was like what the heck!! I brought you into this world and I don’t care how old you are, I can take you out!! Needy my rear-end… Then I asked if one of them would bring me something to drink and the other to throw something away for me. Yes, we all live under the same roof, I have brought them back into the nest but that is a story for another time…

Well, here I am on the computer writing my first piece. I am excited and expect by this time next year it will be a comfortable place to be.

Thank you for taking the time to read my very first blog. Please comment, subscribe and Stay Tuned…