I pretend to understand how some young people view their self-worth. I struggle with it actually, quite a few of them access self-worth with a career. I never felt it necessary to form my life around a job, or career. I wanted to succeed in life, in family, in personal strength. Of course, this is a different world I was brought up in, The need to suceed is ever present, pushed or culture, and in even in middle school. Who you going to be when you grow up? What will you be?

Its all personal. Frankly, I put my children first and foremost. I brought them into the world, I should take the reigns, and build them up to be good functioning people. I thought less of me, and more of them. Its true. I would skip eating a sandwich for lunch so I could give my kids the last slices of bread. I gave up new clothes, shoes, and basic necessities, to give them what they needed or wanted. I worked, but I worked around my husbands schedule-he was the main bread winner- so the kids didn't spend their entire day in a daycare. I wanted them to at least be with one of us  It was difficult raising my kids on a fixed income, but we struggled and we managed to give them a good childhood with great Christmases, birthdays, and even an occasional vacation. It mattered to us, to give them memories, and meals at the table.

So, if I seem unsympathetic to the career hungry culture, its because being successful at being a parent meant a whole lot more than a career. And I like to think I did pretty well with my two kids. So, maybe my career was simply, being a Mom.

What is the dream? What do I want to do in life, is there more? What's next? Is there? What's the future to bring? Is there more to life? I can't decide. What the grand scheme, where do you go from here. Is this all there is? Tell me we all haven't thought of that once or twice. It not that I am not happy but did I expect more by now? Can I really say this is where I wanted to be at this point in my life? Where did all these questions come from all of sudden. Its not as if it hit me suddenly I just sat down and I wonder out loud, well sort of, here on my blog. Can this be it? I got to figure this all out or maybe not, maybe its just suppose to just happen and it will all  fall into place. But what if it has and I passed it by or I let it go. I am so confused! Who are my real friends? Can I trust them?  Maybe something is missing in my life or maybe I am searching too hard. I need to rest. Rest my mind, my heart. Just be... be me.

 I was thinking about my past...my childhood, my first marriage. I was married young, 18 years old to be exact, to Steven Callahan. I had my first born, my son, Daniel at 19 years young. My daughter, Samantha, came 4 years later. People that knew us then, were pretty sure we wouldn't make it, our marriage, I mean. But we were married 19 years before Steven was killed in a horrible accident. an event that changed the course of my life. I cannot describe to you what it felt like to be widowed at such a young age. Just losing someone is difficult enough, but to wake up one morning, go through your day as you alway have, and in a blink of an eye, it all changed. I won't go into details, but I look back at that part of my life and if you'd of asked me 17 years ago, if I could of survived such an ordeal, knowing all that I know now, I would of said, "NO way." But I did. You want to know how? Faith, love of family and friends. Oh but the ordeals we went through as a family. Its indescribable. If I can help ANY widow or widower that goes through this at such a young age, I would say first and foremost- think of your child or children FIRST.  I know, easy advice, obviously-right? But its so easy to say, unless you experience it there is no easy way to say how you think all is going to just "right" itself with time. It doesn't, its a struggle, its painful, but you can get through. I am ashamed to admit it, but I tried to buy happiness. Yes, its reality, I know I did it. My mother, God rest her soul, said it was my youth, not knowing how to handle all the pressures, the finances. But still, what a mistake. I would change so much if I could go back... of course, it not happening in the first place. I just want people to know, its important! Your kids happiness FIRST. Their future-FIRST.

Advice. The grass isn't always greener. We all heard that phrase. I learned that the hard way. Left a job of 15 years for another in the same field for another company. Red flags shot up right from the beginning. One was, " I would never step foot in a Walmart." This was said by my new boss. She actually said that. Yes, I left the company, but it is not this depraved, deviant company they make it out to  be. To say you would never step foot in a Walmart says a lot to me. It tells me you feel "better" than the workers there. That was the first red flag. Second, was how a couple more of my superiors watched my every move. I am serious, I was constantly watched, scrutinized to a point where I felt their eyes burrowing in my back. And to say that had to be an exaggeration, is not the case. It was unnerving to see eyes trained on me whenever I looked at these people. Third, not being able to talk, I don't mean complete silence, like in a library or church...I mean idle talk. If a topic came up out of the work topic, you may of been able to squeeze a sentence or two about it...but not any longer than that. You had to hush up, heads down. or up...to work...nose to the grind stone. Well, that is okay to an extent, but boy can that drain your mind. You feel robotic after a time, not human. Personal conversations were snatched here and there. Moral was a issue because of that. Just do your job, work work work, no life outside brought in unless someone asked, then you had to be brief. That took its toll on me. Hey, I am all about work, do it right, but where is the human aspect of that? What about laughter? What about the human being's life outside this box? No, it drained me.  I could not work where I felt like I was only theirs for 8 hours and nothing to define me outside of that box. So, I started to feel the stress, along the way, to my dispair, my mom got very sick, cancer. I had to be there for her- I wanted to be there. Usually I received compassion on that aspect, but all and all I was expected to never falter, to be able to set all of the emotions aside, and work. That is fine, but it was emotionally draining to be expected not to feel that pain all day. People are not robots. We cannot go through something like a dying parent and not feel stress. I started to make mistakes. I felt isolated, my anxiety went through the roof. I felt "out of sorts" and to top it all off, constantly told how I did everything wrong.  Then, to make matters worse, I was betrayed by another employee who helped me do a computer task in the area, by which she saw over my shoulder  what I made per hour. Wow, shit hit the fan. Apparently I made more than this veteran employee and her co-worker. I get a phone call on my day off- telling me how "unprofessional" it was to do that task at work, on the computers in that area. There were 2 other supervisor on duty as we were doing this, and they even showed us how to get to that area of the website on these computers. These supervisors knew we were doing it, and never once- said it was inappropriate. But it was my fault. I was told I left the window open, which is also a lie because I could pull up the history and I shut that window 1 minute after I opened it. She saw it over my shoulder and blamed me for leaving a window open. THAT Hurt. The 2 employees raised a stink, got their raises, and withing 2 weeks I left. I cannot tell you the anxiety that place caused me. I would never want to work in an environment where people don't have life outside "the box" of the work place. Never again.  I am working back at the "degrading" Walmart. Not to me,  it is not degrading. I feel like part a family. A family that is not perfect by know means, but we laugh, we can talk...They care about me, they ask about my life outside, we share. Its a big relief to me actually to have a job where we can be human and not robots. Lesson learned. I am human, after all.