I find myself in a place and time in my life that I wasn’t really prepared to deal with. But, isn’t that life?

Whether it is a new child, death of a sibling or parent or a unexpected job change; we are never fully ready for what life may throw at us.

However, how we react to this change and how we deal with it will decide our future. That is the the thing to remember. We cannot go back and avoid what life has given us, but we can decide how we move forward.

Something I want to get out first. I am a follower of Christ and have a close personal relationship with Him. I fully lean on Him and know that He is in control. With that said, I am also very much human. There are days and times I struggle with my situation. While I know that God will see me through and He always has, there are still times when I put on my pity party pants and begin to stress about things I cannot control.

I guess a little background is needed at this point.

At this writing I have recently celebrated my 62nd birthday. The big thing about this is the fact that I have been “unemployed” since June 2019. I found that my age has put me in that “experienced” category that makes it hard to convince potential employers to give me a serious look. They all look at my age and experience and think immediately that I will demand too much money or be unhappy with a particular job.

The big thing…I want to work.

I have had successful careers throughout my life. I started off as a deputy sheriff, a police officer and sergeant with a Dallas suburban police department, SWAT team member, transitioned to a civilian with that same municipality and was responsible for all the communication initiatives for them, website content manager for a major youth serving non-profit and a public involvement specialist for a PR agency.

The one thing that I am missing in all of this is a degree to get my foot in the door. Not that I didn’t attempt to get a degree, but life and my job always got in the way. When you are married with a family and on call 24/7, it becomes difficult to always get to class, do homework and those other necessary items to get that degree. But my portfolio was always strong enough to get me serious inquiries and job offers…if I could get my foot in the door.

Then magically the age thing crept and bit me and I must figure out what to do now.

I do have the ability to consult and have done some along the way. In addition, I have website clients and a retirement from my work with the municipality. Couple this income with rideshare driving and God has provided enough of an income to keep us above water.

Now to figure out a map on what to do next, where to go and how to get there.

This blog will detail my travels and travails as I move forward. I know I’m not in this alone. Feel free to comment and share so we can begin our own little community and try to help each other and prop each other up.

Talk to you soon.

Now…what did I do find my map?