Do you ever catch yourself saying you will do something “when I get older?”
I started my working-world debut at Hibbett Sports. It was glorious. Really though—you learn a lot at your first “real” job. I’m not talking about babysitting or mowing yards, but a legit clock-in and clock-out – get a paycheck – kind of job.
I remember how empowering it felt to make my own money. It wasn’t much, minimum wage has always been a joke, but it was still my own money and a sense of being grown up. I remember thinking, “when I get older it’s going to be awesome actually making money you can live off of.” I also remember thinking, “when I get older, I am actually going to get to make money doing something I love vs just a paycheck.”
Following college graduation, I worked at a skilled nursing home for about 3 and half years. I was working on completing a distance dietetic internship while working full-time and having my first baby. Good times. “When I get older,” I thought, “I’ll be a Registered Dietitian, people will need my skills and I’ll make a good living. I’ll be happy and satisfied.”
After leaving the nursing home I went on to work for the department of health. A good ole state job with embarrassing salaries and a retirement system that lures you in and holds you hostage. I will say there is pretty decent job security seeing as most can slide by doing a mediocre job (or even an excellent job – and still earn far less than they are worth), but you can almost commit murder and not get fired. Government workers don’t have time for all that paperwork. They will address it on your next employee review.
Anywho. Working at my state job, I would often think, “When I get older I’ll be able to get away from the BS and really enjoy what I do every day.” I’ll write and paint and not be stressed out 24/7 for a job that will never actually have my best interests in mind. I mean that in the sense that there are far and few between jobs where the “higher ups” actually invest in your well-being and happiness. That is something that is more realistically achieved only when you work for yourself.
But who can do that?
I know I certainly couldn’t and yet I would fantasize about the day that I didn’t have to worry about a meeting or a project or complaint calls and the misery that is 8-5 workdays. I would find myself getting depressed at how badly I just wanted to be able to express myself with writing – in the hopes of helping others and working on painting and other crafts that I could potentially sell. However, in my mind, this was only something that could happen when I got older.
So, I’m kicking along…pushing right at 15 years of service and should be thrilled that I started working when you could still lock in retiring with 25 years of service (it changed to 30 years around 2011). The thing is, instead of trying to pump myself up about having a lifetime pension with only 10 years left of work…all I could think about was how was I going to survive 10 more years doing something I wasn’t sure was right for me anymore? I was pretty certain it was no longer right for me, but what was I going to do about it?
I longed to be able to be passionate again about what I was contributing to the world. I had gotten so discouraged and down with the position I was in because I had come to realize I wasn’t what the expectation had come to be for the position. Many things changed over the last several years to include changes in management at multiple levels and all that came along with the pandemic. Each day…for quite some time, I felt like I lost my spark just a little bit more. I didn’t know why and fully understood the timing was just not going to work because I was still stuck… for another decade… if I wanted to make all of my hard work pay off to receive my retirement.
Then last summer I got to where I just wasn’t feeling right. Long story short, I had to have surgery to remove an enlarged parathyroid gland that was throwing off some of my labs and sending me down a spiral of depression and feelings of further worthlessness. It was my hope that after the surgery in August, I would start feeling significantly better and hopefully be able to “buckle down” at work and find my groove again.
I was seriously praying that I could just get my shit together and be happy and thankful for the great position that I had and the wonderful staff that worked under me and find that fire I once had where I genuinely wanted to make a difference in the lives of the women and children our program served. I wanted to just feel normal, and Lord help me, at least act normal at work….a little less psychopathic.
When I get older I will not live by a clock or work my tail off only to realize it’s still who you know not necessarily what you know that advances you. Only to realize that I’m not even sure I desire to move up given all I have learned over the years about what power can do to seemingly good people.
When my dad’s cancer came back last October, and it had spread this time, I had no idea how quickly my life would be changing in more than one way. In a matter of months the chemo managed to take my dad away from me and this only child was left without a father on the last day of January 2024.
Time stood still. I didn’t know if I was coming or going.
Turns out I was going. Going away from my 8-5 job and into my dream of being able to write and paint. This was just not the way I had envisioned things. I wanted so badly to be out of what felt like shackles for another decade, but not at the cost of losing my dad.
As with pretty much everything, this wasn’t a choice I got to make –losing my dad so soon…and so quickly after we found out the cancer was back. Now I am able to take this plunge of writing and painting and hoping to reach others and potentially help them. It does feel great, but now I can’t help but wish I was getting to do this when I was older.
If I was older, and just beginning to live my dream of writing without being tied to a full-time job—that would mean that my dad was with me much longer…maybe even still here. If I could have made the choice, I would have given anything to have my dad still here and be stuck in a job where I felt worthless for the next 10 years. But…I didn’t get that choice and now I didn’t have to wish anymore about “when I get older” to live my working-life dream.
I just never considered the possibility of this happening now — and only because my dad is gone and left me the ability to give this a try.
Weird how life works out.
I’m thankful, no doubt, about packing up my office and walking away from SO much stress, but now I can’t help but wish that this was “when I got older,” and my dad would still be here to see it.
Perspective always finds us when we least expect it.