Wheels Continue to Turn

I am 52 years old.  I am strong, comitted, passionate and able.  I have been unemployed for 18 months.  Technically I am not unemployed any longer because I have a 24 hour a week job.  All the experience and leadership skills I have acquired and used over the years, have bit the dust.

I had a pretty good run back east.  I have skills in human resources, promotions and event planning at the administrative and executive level.  I have worked for large corporations and small non-profits and have awards for leadership and promotions.  So what.  All those wonderful, hard-earned skills did not keep me from making bad relationship decisions, which inevitably drove me away from the east coast.

I set out for bet you can't find it on a map, Blanding Utah with a sense of joy and urgency.  I wasn't running from anything, necessarily.  Except for the idiot and the evil one.  I didn't think I was running, but I was.  At the time, I knew my future and destiny lay in the middle of nowhere Blanding Utah.  It was time to reinvent myself.  And I did.

My self reinvention was not taking on a new personna, or changing my name and dropping underground until the coast was clear.  My self reinvention was internal.  I was going to be living in the middle of nowhere, Blanding Utah, working, as it turned out, in economic development.  At the time, I had no idea where I would be living or what I would be doing.  The randomness of it all was breathtaking.

I found my passion in economic and community development in the wilds of Utah.  I found that I am in fact capable of anything I set my mind to.  I can make it work by sheer will.  For ten years, I was at the top of my game.  I was on the ground, working with communities, listening to their issues and making plans to make it work.

It is funny how the wheel continues to turn.  I have gone from the top of my game, to the very basement.   My learned skills really don't matter any longer.  I have been actively working looking for work, and it is a full time job.  At 52, I am not 25 and "teachable".  At 52, I can't even get an interview for an $8 hour receptionist position.  I have fourteen bazillion different copies of my resume, each de-emphasizing my skills and abilities a little more each time I write a new resume for an $8 hour retail position.

I was angry for a long time.  I am not angry any longer.  I have come to realize that what I have achieved, I have achieved, and no one can take that from me.  Now new doors are opening, in places and for things I would never have considered 18 months ago.  I am a blank slate.  I am ready to learn something new.  I need to shelve those leadership skills, keep my opinions to myself and learn.

Cleal Bradford, my mentor in Blanding Utah as a VISTA, said it best: "Karyle, you need to learn to sit down, shut up and listen".  It took ten years, but I am ready to listen, quietly.