"How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
(Vincent van Gogh)
I have two younger sisters. My youngest sister emailed this to me for my birthday:
At many points in my life, I looked at lists of possible career choices for someone of my personality type. When I saw that one of my options was "shepherd," I laughed out loud, and said, "Yes, that's it! I would love to be a shepherd. I would be good at that." Who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if one of my female ancestors in the Middle East took care of a flock of sheep. I know that my sister doesn't know that I thought I would make a good shepherd. I continue to take what I have gathered from coincidence.
Much of my life prior to retirement a year ago was spent in looking for a way to use my innate skills and be useful in the world of work. I was useful in the medical industry as a medical transcriptionist for 22 years, but I never felt that I was making full use of my abilities, and in my last 5 years as a medical transcriptionist, the financial compensation for my work dropped to close to minimum wage due to the advent of speech recognition technology and exploitation of medical transcriptionists who work from home.
Prior to beginning to work as a medical transcriptionist at age 34, I was a production worker after having dropped out of college in 1968 and vowing that I would not take a job that supported the war in Vietnam in any way. I lacked the social skills to be a waitress. I lacked the simple mathematical skills to make change as a salesperson. I refused to learn to type. I had no "marketable skills." I remember the first time I saw this photo
and thought that I would like to have a job like that. I proceeded to apply for jobs as a production worker. I have come a long way since that time. I did finish college at age 32 with a degree in English Literature and Art. It baffles me that I would have seen a future for myself in this photo of an exploited girl, and yet I ended up working as a medical transcription subcontractor with as few rights as that girl working in the textile mills of Massachusetts where my great great grandfather who came from the Black Forest in Germany worked as a weaver in the 1800s and died of suicide by hanging at age 90.
As a child and young adult, I never pictured myself as a mother. Never. I wanted to be a cowgirl. I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to save the world from the Nazis. I wanted to write books. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be a librarian, but that required learning a second language, and I didn't have the confidence in myself to believe I could learn a second language.
On a personal level, the child and young adult that I was wanted an "ideal" man to love me. I wanted that beginning when I was 6 years old and watched "Lady and the Tramp." Having watched that movie since then, I find it equally baffling that "Tramp," who is nearly as distasteful to me now as someone with a similar name who is our current president, would become my childhood vision of the "ideal" man I wanted to love me.
The brief history above does much to explain why I always test as an INFP.
Today is the first day of my 70th year. I am grateful to have lived a full life so far, experiencing great joy and great sorrow, and am curious as to what the coming years will bring to the world we live in. The difficulties we face have deep roots that are more and more apparent with each passing day. I don't know how I know, but I know that we will survive against all odds. I am grateful for the darkness and the gentle rain in the early morning on my birthday.
My two younger sisters wished me a happy birthday via email. It's 2018.
A few old and new friends, near and far, sent funny, playful, loving thoughtful cards.
I keep a low profile on my birthday. I avoid commotion. Peace and quiet is my wish. A walk with a friend. Talking on the phone with an old friend from college who lives on the other side of the United States. I enjoy being surprised by the good things that happen unplanned. I am an INFP.
I am grateful for the community of bloggers who have been a steady part of my life since December 2006.
I am grateful for all the men that have been brothers to me in the best of ways:
My mother appeared to be healthy until the day she died of a massive heart attack in 1993 at age 78. My father was not at all healthy when my mother died, but he lived until 89 years old when he died of congestive heart failure. Maybe I will live 8 more years. Maybe I will live 20 more years. I don't have a great desire to live longer than that.
I do have a desire to be useful and of service for the rest of my life, no matter how many years I have ahead of me. That is what I want most to say on the first day of my 70th year.
