43

Ran into the cousin of a friend today – A.B. Last fall she started to train to be a home nurse's aid, a two-year education. She dropped out after one semester, she told me. She had second thoughts about her choice of future.

I met A.B. several years ago when she was bartending at a night club in town. My friend introduced us. A.B. no longer wants to work at waitressing or bartending, and decided to try the line of work my friend got into: In-house nurse's aid (meaning people who go to people's homes to assist them with bathing, diapering, medicating, feeding, etc. My Grandma received such services for a few years). Such nurse's aids also work in nursing homes. But that last was not for A.B. She said she didn't want to work some place where co-workers don't even greet you when you arrive for work. I totally agreed with her that that wasn't a desirable work situation.

Now A.B. was trying to figure out what to do next. She did enjoy going to people's homes and helping them there, and said fellow home nurse's aids were far friendlier in that situation. But she just wasn't sure that this was what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She kind of missed the service business, and was very attracted to training as a hotel receptionist, but again, wasn't entirely sure.

I pulled out my book "The 12 Principles Of The Work We Were Born To Do" by Nick Williams (see previous blog post) and told A.B. I was reading it because I was in the same spot as A.B. – asking myself what I want to do with the rest of my life. The answers eluded both of us.

I was so fascinated by the complete parallell of our stories that I asked A.B. how old she was. "43," she answered. "So am I," I said.