Stasis

The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Stasis as:

: a slowing or stoppage of the normal flow of a bodily fluid or semifluid: as a : slowing of the current of circulating blood b : reduced motility of the intestines with retention of feces

2

a : a state of static balance or equilibrium : stagnation b : a state or period of stability during which little or no evolutionary change in a lineage occur.

That's where I am. I'm in stasis.  I have stalled. I am in career and personal stagnation. I'm not evolving. I'm not growing. 

I'm not gaining any "experience" because you have to be hired to get experience but you can't get hired because you don't have the arbitrary numerical cutoff of requisite experience.  I am caught in an economic and job-related snake that eats it's own tail.  I am in a circular life event.


At least whirlpools eventually lead to the bottom of the ocean.  This is like being in a vacuum.

Did I put myself here? No.  At least, I don't think I did...but it seems as though the Universe has been hard at work realigning my footsteps so that I would wobble and fall off the path I had just found.

I thought I was past this point of groping in the dark, self-discovery, reinvention and perpetual striving to keep afloat.   


I have done everything right and I still find myself in the 99th percentile of my definition of success.


I know what I want. Stagnation isn't it. STASIS isn't it.


I feel like I'm staring at the sun, willing it to move.


MOVE DAMN YOU.


What do I want?


I want a career where I make a difference to the health of the population of my province.  I want the opportunity to give back and make lives better, healthier, longer, add life to years as well as years to life.


I want to move to the Island and live in Sooke.  I want that before the close of 2011.


I want to feel like I have something to hold onto; something solid.  Not a person, but something I made.  


I want the sun to get the hell out of my way, because the more the Universe says no, the more entrenched I'm getting.


I want coaches and Pollyanna's to shove it.  I don't need sunshine and rainbows and cheers and smiley faces.  

I want opportunities for change. I want clear direction. I want a career that I busted my butt for, to start.

I want to be able to take myself and my partner on a well-deserved vacation - not to a free forestry camp site somewhere, but in another country, on another continent.

I tell you what...stasis can take a long walk off a short cliff into the Georgia Strait as far as I'm concerned.

Blockages, Roadblocks & Detours Build a Little Birdhouse In My Mind...

They have moved in; all three of them.  I didn't really prepare the guest room for them, but they've made themselves comfortable.  Looks like they will be here for a while.


All the best laid plans and education in the world can't prepare you for the kick to the pills that comes when the potential dream job for which you interviewed, email breaks up with you.


It's just so harsh. So cold. So digital for this analog heart...


All those dreams and imaginings of joyfully sharing the world that you traded up. Dreams of telling E.I. that you just don't need their help anymore.  Dreams of packing up and moving away to start the career you should have had from the start.  Dreams of showing that you got up, brushed off the humiliation of being laid-off from your FIRST dream job and went out there and did one better...they all got tossed out of my mind the moment I read the potential dream job break-up email.


Then? Vacuum...followed by the sounds of mini saws, hammers and steel toed boots constructing the official offices of Blockages, Roadblocks and Universal Detours.


They have moved in and built that little birdhouse in my mind.


I hope they don't poop on my head EVERY day.


There's a song for that (thanks to They Might Be Giants)...

...And Lo, There Was Disorientation

How does that quote go?  "Sometimes you're the dog, sometimes you're the fire hydrant"? 

It's my turn to be the fire hydrant.

Two weeks ago this coming Monday, I was laid off from what I thought was my dream job.  A divine opportunity to develop as a professional.  A chance to really make a difference and create a niche for myself.  A chance to use all of the education and training I have gathered.

It really WAS that job.

Until it wasn't.

Now, I'm in that limbo.  That place of uncertainty where you question how you made yourself so expendable, so non-essential, so lay-offable.

It's in this limbo space that I find my self bruised and constantly checking out the corner of my eye for the next kick in the pants.  This experience has made me anxious - not just about now - but about the future.  I feel unsteady, like I'm standing on ground in the midst of a liquifaction.

With this unsteadiness, I find myself forced to look at pages where "experts" tell me how to buck up and suck it up and move on.  Sites which try to coach me.

Right now, I don't want a coach, I want a job.  I don't just want ANY job, I want a job where I use my education - all three degrees. 

I want a job where I count.  Where I make a difference.  Where I'm valued for my contribution.  Where I'm necessary.  Where I'm included.  Where I'm part of the future.

In the meantime, I'm hanging out with my dog.  He doesn't judge me.  To him, I count, make a difference, I'm valued, I'm necessary and I'm part of his future.

I'm no fire hydrant to my dog.

Do I Stay or Do I Go?

I find myself in a bit of a conundrum.

I have finished my M.A. in Gerontology and need to find work in my career field.

To be more specific, I need to find work related to my education, in my field AND work that contributes to, enhances and furthers my career path. As much as I appreciate having a job, I can't live as an admin assistant forever.

The problem is that I have been in school, busting my brain for several years. During those years I didn't gain any real experience in the working side of my field, save that gained during my 300 hours interning with the Provincial Government.

That internship seems now, to count for very little and the job market is more than a little depressed.

I feel like leaving to find opportunity and betterment anywhere but here. Yet I'm not alone. Any decision I make to stay or to leave must be made with consideration for my partner and his family as well as for mine.

Finding career opportunities for myself may be detrimental to my partner and visa versa.

I could go to Kamloops where he has a job opportunity, but I don't know if there will be anything there for a Gerontologist.

I could leave for Ottawa where careers for Gerontologists in public health are more fruitful, but there could be nothing for him.

We could move to Vancouver Island, be bound by the Ferries and perhaps neither one of us will find work.

Part of my conundrum is the lack of awareness in both private industry and in health care, as to how to utilize Gerontologists who are not nurses. It seems that the entire LTC industry is built around licensing and policy that has nurses at the core of practice.

Gerontologists aren't all nurses, its true. I most certainly am not. Part of the barrier I'm running into, is the lack of awareness that Gerontology is the scientific study of the biological, psychological and social aging process over the ENTIRE LIFESPAN. Take a gander at the diversity of research being conducted at the Simon Fraser University Gerontology Research Centre here.

Knowledge of aging and the aging process, healthy aging practices and age friendly planning is not only applicable to older adults! Aging happens to every human being from the moment they are born. One does not have to be a nurse to have a positive impact on the aging experience and quality of residents in long term care or living independently in the community.

Gerontology and gerontologists can contribute to ANY environment in which there are goals to enable people to be healthy, live well, die well, support themselves and maintain their independence and achieve quality of life not just quantity of years.

This applies to policy development, community planning, city planning, care facility and hospital design and planning, activity and recreation planning and health programming both at the community level and the home or facility level.

Where does aging happen? All over the world, wherever people live, all day long, every day.

So, my dilemma is - Do I stay or do I go?

Attention world: Gerontologist At Large.