Trying To Join In

Today I had lunch with six women from town. We ate at a local diner, one of a handful of businesses on Main Street. I had a cup of beef barley soup.

A friend I made last summer first introduced me to this group of retired women by way of a monthly book club. Those meetings have not fit into my schedule since December, and today was the first time I was able to accept an invitation to lunch. I like these women.

Talk inevitably turned to grandchildren, husbands who are retired, mothers in nursing homes, and vacation trips. These are not things we have in common.

Someone commented that she liked my hair, that it was flattering. Someone else mentioned that I looked dressed up. I told her I was practicing for the day I go back to work. She chuckled. She asked me what I wanted to do, and I told her I was interested in policy work. She asked me if I knew a woman in town with the same interest, and I told her that in fact I met that woman in a class I took two years ago.

It was my turn to ask her how the plans were coming for the plant sale, a fund raiser for the library. I went to a planning meeting one evening last week to find that it had been cancelled, but no one told me. It was rescheduled for last night, but no one told me that either. She said that plans are on schedule. I said that I guessed that I would find a group where I could be of help. She said that the same people have been doing the sale for so long that they know what needs to be done.

It would be nice to get to know the "Friends of the Library" because some of those women are working or in the process of changing careers. A few of that group have lived in town for decades, but more are new to town within the last ten years or so. I am looking forward to getting to know them better. There is a general library meeting at the end of April, and I will plan to go because I'm still trying to join in.

At lunch today someone loaned me a book about plants and flowers. My book club friends know a lot about gardening and have offered to help me when I begin work on our yard.

In the meantime we are getting new neighbors next door. Ken is curious - he spied a John Deere tractor in their driveway.

Out Like A Wet Lamb

It looks like the last three days of March will be soggy. More rain today. I just heard thunder. It may reach 40 degrees.

None of my picks made it to the Final Four. I have a total of 70 points, the least of any member of our family in the bracket competition. I enjoy watching the games, regardless of who wins, because the players work so hard. Every team deserves to win. I wonder what it feels like to be able to play basketball that well.

I am scattered today. I got on the treadmill earlier and walked for 15 minutes; then I got impatient and took a break to do something else. I was moving but felt too unsettled to walk a half hour. I did return an hour later, and I picked up the pace to finish my two miles in under 30 minutes.

I have chores to finish here before I go to my daughter's house. I thought it would be fun to shake things up, so I offered to make dinner at her house tonight. She's been traveling for work, and I'd like to hear about her trip.

I am champing at the bit for a change in routine, for something to shift, for something to fall into place. I need to keep moving.

March In Maine Means Mud

Under cloudy skies and with the temperature hovering just above freezing, Ken and I bundled up to venture out this morning. We had two errands to run in the next town, where there are paved streets to walk and interesting sights to see. Before we climbed in the car I asked him to take a picture of me to show hair color and length two weeks into the process. I am surprised at how much more I smile for the camera these days.

The newspaper delivery guy hangs the paper on our mailbox before sunrise every morning. The protective yellow bag does a good job against the elements. Unfortunately, it does nothing about the mud moat in front of the mailbox.

We periodically check this creative way to tally the money collected for a new town library.

This house often has something colorful in the yard, and today it was an egg tree. The bright blue container in the background is a custom-painted dumpster.

Last fall I met the woman who lives in this church, a structure I admired when I first saw it two years ago. She saved it from demolition during the 80's and built a living space in a corner of the interior. There is still a large open space where she has hosted public meetings. I hope to catch her home sometime so she can give me a tour.

The building is even more impressive when you can see the length in relation to the height. I asked Ken if he ever thought of living in a church; he sees how hard it would be to paint and heat. I see the romance of old wood and tall windows.

Career Exploration Workshop #2

Our meeting place for today's workshop was in a different building, and I got lost. I went in the wrong door, walked down the wrong hallway, and asked the wrong person for directions. I was told to go out the front door, walk around the building, and enter through a different door at the back of the building. Fortunately, I ran into a classmate who had figured out where we needed to be.

It felt good to enter a room where the faces were familiar.

Yesterday, in preparation for today's workshop, I completed the interest survey. I was a bit surprised at the results. Of the categories [Skilled] Crafts, Scientific, The Arts, Social, Business, and Office Operations, I felt sure that Social would be my number one category: everything I've done to this point has involved working with people. According to my 120 responses, my highest career interest area is Business, which still involves working with people but with more of an organizational focus. Bingo! This fits with my interest in organizational and community practice within the field of social work. The Social interest area was a close second.

We started this morning's session pretending we were at a party where pretend people were in small groups around the room talking about what interests them. Taped to walls around the room were six lists of what interested the "people" in each group. It was our job to find the list that most interested us; there were no labels or indications of specific careers.

My first choice was a list that included "work with people, influencing, persuading, organizational goals."

We did the exercise two more times. My second-most interesting list included "help, enlighten, develop, and skilled with words." My selection for round three was the list that included "observe, learn, and solve problems."

The first list of words described the Enterprising category, which is equivalent to Business. The second list described the Social category. No surprises so far. Then it gets interesting, no pun intended. The third list described the Scientific category.

Hold the phone, I am not a scientist. However, on a good day I match up with many of the qualities that describe a scientist: original, creative, independent, rational, curious, likes to solve math problems, and does not like rules.

This process is not meant to be an exact science, again no pun intended. It is meant to help me look at what interests me from a variety of angles.

And that is what happened today.

As we talked about what we learned about ourselves I jotted down these notes: stretching view of myself; getting comfortable with who I am, not who I've always tried to be; tension within.

Our facilitator said we may find ourselves moving out of our comfort zone. There are things we know how to do. Then there are things that interest us that are are new to us, and we may need to leave our comfort zone to explore those interests.

I have decided that the comfort zone isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Blog Anniversary

*Note: Last week in a post titled Slips of Paper I mentioned five questions that I found in an article years ago in an "O" magazine. The questions ask about the relationship a job has to a desired way of life. I searched online for the reference for the questions, without luck, so I removed them from the post. Then I thought to email Oprah.com to ask if they knew when the article appeared. Sure enough, they did. The questions have been added to the post and you can read them here.

Today is the first day in my second year of blogging. My daughter helped me start this blog last year on March 23, Easter Sunday. The First Post was titled just that and was all of two sentences long. I had no idea how this blog would develop. I couldn't imagine what I would have to write about.

What a difference a year makes.

Through writing here, and reading the blogs of others, I have met women I never would have known otherwise. My world has expanded to include women of all ages and professions who are willing to share their lives and wisdom.

That has made all the difference in how I feel about this time of my life, still a time of transition but no longer a time where I feel alone, still a time of challenges but no longer a time of despair.

There is no way to know where I will be a year from now. The journey continues....

Dreams Of Travel And Teaching

It's 20 degrees outside, with a wind chill that makes it feels colder despite the sunshine and clear skies. Yeah, not feeling so much like spring.

I am home this week, like every other week. I have meetings to attend and things to do, all within twenty-five miles of my house.

Members of my family are traveling for work this week ~ to New Hampshire, Arkansas, and France.

I dream of travel, literally. In Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life No Matter What! Martha Beck advises the reader to pay attention to their dreams. I often dream I am traveling, for work, to talk to groups of people. For years I have fantasized about having a job where I travel, although I'm not sure what the job is that I'm doing. I see myself rushing through the airport on my way to catch a plane. I don't know where I'm going, but I have someplace to be associated with the work I'm doing.

I also dream about teaching. For months I have had dreams about working in situations where I am teaching; sometimes I am working with children and sometimes with adults. I don't remember what I am teaching or where I am working. Sometimes I am sitting at a table with a small group, and sometimes I am standing in front of a large group of people.

I don't think my dreams of travel and teaching are symbols for something else.

I like to travel, but I have never travelled for work. Some of my desire to travel may be in response to all the years I have stayed home while my husband hits the road. I'd like to be the one who goes away for days at a time. I'd like to come home to a clean house and a prepared meal, to hear about what has happened around the house all week, knowing that everything has been taken care of in my absence.

Even though I don't plan to return to classroom teaching, there are many other jobs where teaching is part of the job description. When I got a degree in education, many people told me that the skills would be transferable. It's a matter of finding the right position.

And I am still trying. I received another thank-you-for-your-application-but-we-hired-someone-else email this morning. I have just about exhausted the contacts I made through my internship while working on my MSW.

The career counselor brought to my attention three weeks ago that I mentioned three different entrepreneurial opportunities. My response was that I don't really want to work for myself. I want to work with other people. She said that I could keep the ideas in mind as I move through the career exploration process. Maybe something will come to light with the interest survey.

Everything is in a jumble today.

Career Exploration Workshop #1

Thursday morning I entered a conference room and took a seat at a table. I was one of eight women who showed up for the first in a series of Career Exploration Workshops.

We are an interesting group ~ from a variety of backgrounds, with a wide range of interests, and at ages that span more than thirty years. The one thing we have in common is the transition we are experiencing in our lives.

To begin we briefly introduced ourselves. Then we listed all the things that make looking for a job difficult, so we could set those things aside and focus on the work at hand ~ the exploration of what we value, where our interests lie, and what kind of work we really want to do.

As I prioritized my personal values I thought about: how I've wrestled for months with what matters to me and what I want; books I've read and words I've written; what has stayed the same and what has changed. It turns out that all of that is reflected in how I value integrity, self-realization, inner harmony, purpose, and family.

The results of a work value inventory clearly reinforced how important it is for me to do work that matches my way of life and the kind of person I want to be, that I want to feel a sense of accomplishment, and that creativity in my work is important. My comment to the group was that it's time for me to stop trying to fit myself into someone else's box.

The career counselor I have been working with is the facilitator for the workshops. She asked us if we would be willing to try an experiment in using some type of online forum where we can find information and leave comments between sessions. People in the group have different experiences with technology. I was the one who could explain how a blog works. Me. [You read that right, K.] It was the first time, ever, that I have been the person in a group to explain anything technological. Smile.

Our homework for next week is to complete a survey of interests. Homework. Smile.