Another series of months that quickly turned into over a year disappeared while I was consumed by events like birthdays, holidays, work drama, and social obligations. Throw in downsizing my 80+ mother from her mobile home to a senior facility, obsessing over a dying cat, and quitting my job, and one has an abundance of excuses to find consistent writing impossible. Heck, I didn’t even finish NaNoWriMo this year. The world has one less barely readable romance novel.
But Mom is relocated, my cat is dead (two more still vie for attention), and my former work situation is fading into a fond memory instead of the suffocating source of annoyance that it actually was. The possibility exists that I can do this. I can start a habit of chronicling the angst of a woman from the older end of Generation X. We are starting to “retire.” Some of us are in danger of giving up.
My exit from the workforce is an acknowledgment that I do not have the stamina or desire to keep up with a profession that constantly expects more while providing fewer resources. Covid lockdowns confirmed that I enjoyed working in my own space. The slower pace due to eliminating some tasks and meetings let me do my remaining work well instead of attempting many things haphazardly. Zoom meetings saved time. Lockdowns, and later pre-vaccination fears about going out, gave me the opportunity to stockpile enough cash to leave without potentially putting myself in a worse situation.
I suspect that many women my age would appreciate the ability to escape. I have the time to work on myself, work on my house, maybe actually work again at an online job. I intend to read Ada Calhoun’s book Why We Can’t Sleep, for further insights. While doing so, I’ll tend to my mom’s desires, care for kitties, and try not to spend too much time patting myself on the back for running away from an unhealthy and unsustainable situation. I should have done it sooner.