Showered and dressed and nowhere to go

Today, the day immediately following my filing for unemployment, I not only got dressed, I also showered. That's more than I would have done on a normal, employed Sunday, so I'm feeling pretty proud.

I also sent my name and identifying characteristics to two different volunteer opportunities, one of which is a food bank-type place, the other a hospital. It was a little disheartening to check off that I am available any day of the week, any time of day. To preserve a shred of self-pride, I didn't check Saturday and Sunday nights: I'm living in hope that there will be times that my husband and I might actually have plans some Saturday nights; and Sunday nights in our household are just plain hell, and while I would love to use my volunteer work as an excuse to escape our whiny, exhausted, homework-laden children, to say nothing of all the forms that always need to be signed for upcoming field trips, blah blah blah, I adore my husband too much to leave him to fend for himself while I go off to load canned foods into boxes.

Last night, I read myself to sleep with a truly amazing book: The Nonprofit Career Guide: How to Land a Job that Makes a Difference. In fact, I didn't read myself to sleep with it, I kept myself keyed up, motivated, and inspired by it. I checked it out of the library, but I'm going to have to buy it because there are many things I want to highlight, and there are portions I know I will return to again and again.

Most of my adult professional life has been in the nonprofit sector, so it's not like this is an all-new concept. I am a knee-jerk liberal, born and bred. My children, who are 8 and 10, are more anti-W than I am and laugh derisively every time Caribou Barbie opens her mouth.

I have loved my jobs, every one of them. I have worked with children in public schools and private schools. I have had the honor and privilege of learning from them, as well as from others who work with them. It's not like I have spent my life making money by trying to convince people to buy cars they don't need or to turn a blind eye to investments that actually hurt other human beings.

But I think there might be even more out there for me. I might well have happily, successfully lived out the rest of my working years at the school from which I have been laid off. It's a wonderful school, a school that does so many more things right than any other school I have seen. But now I am presented with an opportunity to try something different, maybe to make a difference in a different way, through a different venue.

I'm showered and dressed--time for a drink.