ch- ch- changes

It’s hard to write when the world is on fire. My heart and my head are so heavy.

Besides the general *gestures at everything*, January has been a month of churn and change here. So, I thought I’d share a new path I’m wandering down and then regroup and reframe for February. (I saw some FIGgy news headed that way…)

So, what’s changing? Who’s changing?

School started (for me)

What’s that? It both feels so random and so right. As work became more and more uncertain and taxing and miserable last year, I started doing some thinking about my future. I’m almost 50, my child will be graduating in 5 years, and I’m in a moment of figuring out who I am outside of my job and caretaking and being injured… 

I seem to be right in the right place to navigate a personal pivot, a third act with agency and purpose. 

When I was a child, I wanted to be a librarian. The safety and possibilities of our small town library helped build me into the reader and the mom and the human that I am. When I was applying to college, I wanted to go for Library Science, but my mom felt that the only life of public service for me would be teaching and that was that; I entered college as a math and high school teaching double major and life went on from there. (Only for me to drop math immediately (don’t know why that was ever a thing!) and the high school teaching major after a year because I never took any of the classes, and landed with English and Theatre undergrad degrees.)

Then, my whole life happened. Working at Home Depot and going to grad school, both full time. Meeting the Mr at my first non-retail job (where I still work!). Working and moving up and being almost too quirky for corporate. Lil Momma being born and moving houses and losing my parents and a pandemic and all of that. 

Life is so short. Sometimes, I feel a little lost in mine. I’m so many things to so many people, but who I am (to me?) has gotten blurry. I’m lucky, though, to be able to take some swings and steps to find my own through-line again. 

Last week, I started a fully asynchronous and online Masters of Library and Information Science program part time with the hope of working at a public library or archive or historical society once LM finishes school.

If my job stays tolerable (which the rumor mill says it should get back to in a month or so), the MLIS gives me something to think about and do that isn’t work and hope for something more me in a few years. If I get laid off, I can always jump in full time and start looking for jobs in the field. 

It feels so good to be doing something (anything), even if it’s been more than a hot minute *cough twenty two years cough* since I’ve taken an academic class. 

So, everything is a lot (and a lot of awful), but also there’s something to be said for finding growth and change and doing what you can to make a difference in your own and the greater world. 

Have you ever done a career pivot? All of this feels wild to me, but in such a good way…