There’s a way across the river, but you have to be brave, willing to take the leap from stone to stone, open to choosing your path when you have already jumped away from the safety of the shore.
What difficult crossing in your life are you trying to navigate?
Health and wealth are major stepping stones in my life at this point. As other aging-in-place people, the concern about how to try to manage both in tandem is a factor. Although I face the reality of not really having control about how to manage funds so that I can be comfortably cared for as the need arises or if it does, life goes on (thankfully), and wanting to use what “wealth” I still have after 20 years of retirement for personal or other uses presents a juggling act! Stepping from one stone to another is very likely the best approach with the hope that I don’t slip and fall into the rushing waters. On the other hand, letting things flow as they will is certainly one solution.
Eventually, and soon, I will have to return to work. For most of my life after college, the past dozen years, I’ve been “just” a homemaker. But it’s becoming apparent that we will need more money coming in to build savings or else or situation will be paycheck to paycheck indefinitely. I’ve had short term and part time jobs over the years, but never a career. It was absolutely stupid of me not to get established in a career ASAP after college, and to choose to rely on a spouse. Now I’ll be looking for entry level jobs, and competing with new college grads while my hair is starting to go gray. It’s not that I’ve never done anything with myself, it’s just that I don’t have the experience and skills or confidence or even a direction. And I’d like to be married for love not financial dependency, but I can’t see how I could get to be self-supporting, without a lot of additional education to become something specific. I need to make a bunch of leaps, but I’m terrified and frozen in place.
Maggie, I don’t have an answer to your marital situation since I’ve never married and have supported myself throughout my career. However, I’ll say this: during all of that time, I took opportunities to be educated and re- educated and that meant lots of times when I was in classes with younger students. I had some of my best friends then. If you make the leap, expect that you will be accepted, respected and often “part of the crowd”.
Today’s Daily Compass is just the image I needed today. I’m struggling with gloomy feelings and a strongly entrenched tendency to isolate. But, as the frog picture on my bulletin board reminds me, I’d better go ahead and leap into the stream of life 🙂
Anne, I find that using the Daily Compass as regularly as possible lets me know more and more about myself!