Reply #232: Try being UNEMPLOYED

[chervilant]

I will be 52 on January 6, and I have been unemployed or underemployed for the past year and some months. I resigned from a mega-mortgage lender in August a year ago. I could no longer tolerate that company's efforts to compromise my integrity with pimping their high risk loan programs--which I consistently refused to do the entire time I worked for them, much to my manager's dismay. Since resigning that position, I have been a member of an accelerated program to become a teacher (let's not even begin to discuss that venue...).

I have chronic back pain, and can no longer power walk (used to do four miles a day). I have no idea whether the strange growth on my right shoulder is skin cancer or just a bizarre mole. I know I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my left wrist and possibly degenerative arthritis in my right hip. I haven't had a check-up, a pap smear or a mammogram in over two years.

I pray that I don't need any major medical intervention until AFTER I get my first contract. I try not to feel superfluous or unnecessary as a consequence of this reality, but it's hard.