I didn’t realize how much our work/career identifies us to everyone else until I lost my job a few years ago. It’s natural that when you meet someone for the first time one of the first things you are asked is “What do you do?” It’s a way to potentially find common ground or to open up a whole new discussion. I was really torn the first time someone asked me after I was laid off. At first, I joked around…said I was part of the wave of people laid off due to the recession and yes, I voted for Obama. This was my way of letting people know I was okay and that I fully expected to be gainfully employed again soon.

Fast forward two years. Unemployment insurance has run out and now it’s not so funny. Joined the “405 club” online – a site dedicated to out-of-work New Yorkers…the “405” reflecting the amount of our unemployment check. Good morale booster but nothing concrete comes out of that.

Four years. Yikes. Yes, voted for Obama again. Essentially have given up having a career again and now it’s me, my morning walks to keep me relatively sane and filling my days with friends, reading, and yes…being a homemaker. There it is…a reviled word that as a woman of a “certain age” never thought they would call themselves. We were going to have it all…as the 1970’s commercial jingle said “She can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan”.

Have the pan but not the bacon. And each day it becomes easier to come to terms with it. As I have said in previous blogs, I don’t miss the stress of working; I miss the identity it gave me. When I see my friends advancing in their careers, while very happy for them, I get that certain tug of “what if I hadn’t lost my job? Where would I be now?” 

Little Voice. Having a career legitimizes your value to society and without one, a feeling of disenfranchisement can overpower you. I fight that feeling by keeping current with news, politics and popular culture so I can join in on the conversation.  

Not having a career does not have to identify you. Really.