Realization

And so, thirty years later, I realize that I did extremely well achieving my personal desires and goals after all.  I married a man who loves me with passionate intensity.  I live in my own house in one of the most desirable areas of the USA.  I have two wonderful children who, thus far, have caused me no major grief.  (My husband's brother had the twins, thank you very much!)  My husband is gainfully employed in a Monday through Friday job working agreeable hours.  I suppose the only fly in the ointment of my life if that I must still continue to work.  I often wish I didn't have to but then I think that if I didn't, I'd probably spend more time than is good for me on the computer and nothing would get done!

When the time came for me to go back to work, I ran into a dilemma.  My prior working experience had been in the secretarial field.  A lot had changed in that area, not the least being the introduction of computers, word processing andd oh, so many complicated things of which I was completely ignorant.  I was truly out of the loop!  I would've had to go back to school to get an up-to-date education.  This would've cost us money and the idea was to try to bring some money into the household, not spend more.  The business world was all I knew.  I had no special skills.  I wasn't in the least bit artistic and the horrifying idea of starting up a day-care was totally out of the question.  So what to do?  My older sister came to my rescue.  She said, "I know what you can do.  You can come work with me". 

"You've got to be kidding," I replied.  My sister worked as a nursing assistant (the best) in a convalescent hospital.  I dreaded the place so much that if I had a message for her, I'd leave it under a windshield wiper of her car in the parking lot rather than go in there.  I wouldn't be caught dead working in a place like that!  I'm not exactly sure how it happened but not long after this, she convinced me to spend a day at work shadowing her to check it out.  Permission was granted and I did so.  The result of this was that I agreed to try working there for a month.  A person could stand anything for a month, couldn't they?

I worked there for six and a half years.  I had the most wonderful teacher in my sister and got my nursing assistant certification.  Much to my surprise, I found I had an inborn knack for this kind of work.  I was voted Employee of the Year in 1992.  Who'd have thunk it?!  It was the hardest job I've ever had both physically and emotionally and I learned volumes about the senior population and myself. 

Living proof that you never know what you can do until you give it a try.  No one was more surprised than I.