Money

Well the troubled economy has made it's way to my front door, bringing with it the questions and doubt of a mid-life woman as to whether she chose the right path for her life. I've gone back and forth on this issue many times over the years when money gets tight and it always leaves me feeling like I haven't contributed enough financially to our family. Then the guilt sets in and you know how that goes. I wonder often where we'd be right now had I gone the way of my sisters and been a nurse or a teacher. My sisters are all very successful in their careers, but I know they struggle too. It's just part of life. It's hard to feel like you can make an alternate career choice when you know that even a temporary change in your income will take it's toll on your ability to get the bills paid. And then change finds you anyway.

The truth is I've never been very good at managing money, always pushing the envelope. If I had in a savings account all the money that I've paid in bank fees over the years, not only would I not be writing this today, I'd be boarding an airplane somewhere WARM! Just to give you an idea of how poorly I am at managing money, whenever I see Suzie Ormon come on television, I immediately break into a cold sweat and can't change the station fast enough. She's too tangible a reminder as to my failings in this department.

I really don't know what precipitated my relationship to money. Maybe being the baby of seven and always being taken care of helped to lay the groundwork. Or maybe having an unhealthy body image for many years made it easy to go for the quick fix and just buy something new which would make me feel better about the way I looked instead of dealing with fixing the problem. Maybe it's the nature of my personality. Forever the optimist that says, "Oh it will be okay, it always is.", which helps to birth procrastination and complacency. Maybe it's just sheer laziness or perhaps fear (ahhh...the magic word!).

I once worked with a life coach whose expertise was fear. One of the things she said to me which I keep with me until this day is, "Maybe you're not just a laid back, easy going person Carrie. Maybe you're just too fearful to have strong opinions of your own because then you'd have to act on them and make decisions you're too afraid to make". Maybe. Maybe not. I can't decide.

Whatever the excuses have been, this knock at my front door is leaving me with a sense of urgency. A now or never, change now or forever hold your peace, do or die kind of urgency that didn't exist when I was younger, but does now at almost fifty. What I'll do with it remains to be seen but for today I'm going to try to resist the call to panic, take a deep breath and go back to a place of gratitude for all that is good in my life, count my blessings and stay open to the possiblities.

In the meantime, if you have any suggestions on how to write a good resume, I'm all ears!

xo,
Carrie