Monday, October 1, 2012
I know I am not the first person to experience these life stages, but I would bet that I am in the trailblazer category when it comes to late Baby Boomers starting over. I have also experienced some notable and historical financial crises in US history which have shaped my life and directed my path.
Though both of my parents had college education, I was not prepared to enter college after High School. I thought I would just get a job and work. Instead, I got married at eighteen.
We lived in rural Minnesota and managed a 65 cow dairy herd with 360 acres of farmland. It was a lot for two kids under twenty five to handle, but we did well. We were enthusiastic and energetic. We had high hopes of building the business into a farm where we could raise our own kids.
But then the farm crisis of the early 1980's robbed us of all the profits from our operation. Milk prices dropped and we had borrowed money at high interest rates. The bank told us they could not give us an operating loan. Without it, we could not plant crops that year.
In the spring of 1985, with a six month old daughter in tow, we had to shut down, sell out, pack up and leave. On the last day, I remember sitting on the back step, looking at the empty pasture and the field that was still fallow. I cried as I realized I would never again have this lifestyle. My children would never know that this life existed. I felt the weight of my husband crumble as our first dream was lost.
We pulled it together and got on with life. He got two years of college and a labor job at an aluminum recycling plant. I raised our two daughters at home until they were both in school. Then I joined the ranks in the customer service department of a local wholesaler.
All the years we were raising the kids, we wished for a home in the country. It just was not possible for us catch up from losing everything, save enough money to move to a hobby farm and have enough for the kids. So we chose to enjoy the kids. And we did. They kept us busy with various clubs, music lessons, sports and school activities.
We encouraged the girls to go to college as we knew it was their ticket to a comfortable life. We sacrificed for them because we knew our day of plenty would come when they left the nest. Every wish we had for them revolved around the security that a college degree would provide.
Then, at age 40 I decided to try my own hand at college. While working full time and raising two kids, I went to weekend college and earned my Bachelor's degree over six intense years of work and study. I was counting on that degree to push me to the next level at work.
About that time, the bottom fell out of the economy. On the heels of 9/11, America launched into the great recession of the 2000's. My husband lost his job of twenty three years and went on unemployment for a year. At the same time, I lost my job of thirteen years. We had two girls still in college who were still in need of our support. Life was not going to be comfortable or easy for any of us, and we lost our second dream.
Again we pushed through. We kept our house when others were defaulting in alarming numbers. Both our girls finished college and they are both gainfully employed. I have started a new career that I enjoy and my husband is back at work with the same long-time employer who had laid him off for over a year.
Things are looking up and we are thankful for all that we have. However, with three recent college degrees in our family, there is a mountain of student loan debt that we are working on paying back. It is tough sometimes to know how close I will be to collecting social security when the loans are finally paid back.
This is the life I have built. I can give up or keep going. I can be happy or sad. I choose to keep going and be happy. But I have a lot of living to do in the next twenty five years. While others are settling into their Golden Years, I will be hustling to pay for my education. I will be striving to advance in my career where many of my colleagues are twenty years younger than me.
I know fifty is just a number, but it it still a measure of time. When the number of years behind is larger than the number yet to come, it sparks a new appreciation for life as well as a new way to assess happiness. I have found that while I have landed short in many of my dreams, I have peace and satisfaction knowing that I have never stopped striving and never stopped believing in myself.
Cheers to the next third of my life!
No comments:
Post a Comment