It’s been almost a month since my employer announced we would be closing our warehouse and letting all of us go by early 2017. As a woman approaching 50 this was pretty devastating news. My mind instantly raced to thoughts and worries of “How will I pay my rent? What about my car payments? Who will hire someone my age?” But over the last month my thoughts have turned to sentiments of “What is it I REALLY WANT to do? When was I ever going to get around to actually doing those things? And Why not now?”
As I mentioned in my Day one post, this site was created to give me an outlet to express what it is like for someone like me heading into their 50’s and beyond. Losing one’s job can be a major setback at this age both financially and emotionally. I will be exploring some of the ways people move through these life events. Over the next year or so I will be posting about how this change is affecting me and others my age that I work with. I will be looking at the financial preparations that I will be making to allow for some breathing room when I am jobless, as well as how I want to spend my remaining years and the things I want to accomplish throughout the duration of my lifetime. Some people like to call it a bucket list but I am not very fond of that term. I find it morbid and it reminds me of the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he sings “The rabbit kicked the bucket, the rabbit kicked the bucket”. Bugs is referring to his own death by shotgun. I prefer to use the title Quintastic Quests and it will be a fluid list of things I want to do at some point in my future. The list will grow as I grow. Interests change over time so I don’t think the list will ever truly be complete, but I am OK with that!
As I share these anecdotes, I invite you to share yours with us as well. I would love to hear how others have handled similar situations. Send me an email if you are interested in guest posting or you can share via the comment section to the posts along the journey. It’s always good to know that you are not the only one experiencing a situation and it can be therapeutic to discuss it with others. I am hoping this site can be the forum for that therapy for you and me.