Volunteer

Growing up I was not encouraged to get a job until I was out of high school. Of course I was only seventeen, so that wasn't too awful . . .

My first jobs were babysitting and mowing yards, but my first real job was working for my grandmother's nursing home. I collected dirty laundry. Washed it. Dried it and returned it to wherever it belonged. Sometimes I helped out in the kitchen with breakfast or supper. It was a family business. The ladies were sweet. It seemed like a decent job.

Then I went away to school and when I came home I worked for a small insurance company. It felt pointless to me.

Later I worked for a larger insurance company and for a while it did feel important, but I didn't work selling people insurance, or underwriting their policies. I worked in personnel. People are important to me, but I only stayed here about two and a half years before quitting.

At home I took maintaining our yard and home very seriously and I also took playing tennis very seriously. Often playing six hours a day before going home to cook dinner.

I had a few novelty jobs like pumping gas that lasted less than a year for one reason or another. Then the children entered the picture and I took rearing them very seriously. I can think of nothing more important than caring for the next generation of people who will run the world. It is the hardest job in the world when done right, but the payoff is in things much more valuable than money. It is a labor of love.

Once my children were all in school, I worked in their preschool until just before our divorce.  It was the best job I ever had! The pay was awful, but it, too, was a labor of love.

Later, when circumstances changed, I went back to the big insurance company for another two and a half years. It was horrible and I worked with some wonderful people in Agency, but I worked under a woman who could make the sun look blue. I quit and went to work for a florist.

I actually loved working there. I answered the phone, took orders, did some billing, learned how to help people order flowers for weddings and funerals, learned a lot about the greenhouse plants and in my spare time, fluffed carnations and plucked roses. I underestimated how much I loved working there when I moved away. When I finally made it back here, the shop had closed.

Now I volunteer at an elementary school. I have done this sort of work since my youngest child started kindergarten and he is 38. I wish they paid for this kind of work. I would get a full time job.

But schools today are lucky to have libraries. In fact, they are lucky to have buses to get the kids to school and teachers to teach them. So I volunteer.

The luxury of volunteering is just that, but it has let me spend most of my life doing what I thought was important.