The situation I was in
Suddenly being confronted with divorce after 14 years of marriage feels a bit like having run the Grand National years ago, and then being told years later that the whole race has been declared null and void, and you have to run it all over again.
Only this time you’re older and tireder and there is a whole new generation coming up fast behind you.
When it happened to me, I felt fear. I felt as though I were facing a lonely and impoverished future.
First things first: how was I going to survive financially?
A quick stock-take
I worried that I wasn’t a ‘careerwoman’. Before marriage I had worked in the publishing industry and library world neither of which at my level was well-paid.
After marriage I worked part-time because it was important to me to have time and energy for my own writing, home, and community. The micro-aggressions of business life weren’t my cup of tea.
This is why I’ve been so heartened to see women like Alena Kate Pettitt speaking up for the time-honoured role of housewife and homemaker.
For me this was no longer an option. I needed to go back to full-time paid work. Initially I wondered if I should train for a more highly paid career. If I was on my own with no other source of income, surely this made sense? But I guessed this would probably mean extra-long, stressful, working days leaving me with no heart for a life outside work.
I foresaw that being able to function outside work was going to be crucial for me as a newly single woman. So I decided I would opt for less money with less stress and more time and energy.
The actions I took
I started by looking at my past work experience as future possibilities, trying to visualise what sort of life the world of publishing or libraries might give me. Publishing for me had meant spending all day sitting over a desk with my head buried in a set of page-proofs. Librarianship on the other hand is all about people, interacting with people to connect them with books. I suspected this held more promise.
But I knew I would need a professional qualification to improve my chances in the jobs market which is how I came to apply for a course in library and information studies in London.
The experience
I went to London in a spirit of pessimism but to my surprise this step heralded a definite shift in my recovery. New surroundings, new contacts, a brain being stimulated by new study, all helped begin the process of leaving the past behind.
It had its tough moments to begin with. Sometimes tears felt very near the surface due to the underlying ache of loss. I managed to dry the tears and hang on to the belief that I was building a new life for myself, life would get better, and when the time was right, love would come again.
How things turned out
I completed the course and went back home to Oxford which fortunately is a place with lots of libraries. Having the qualification helped get me interviews and though there were plenty of rejections, a proportion led to jobs in university libraries. I found educational libraries to be stimulating and fun environments with bright young students, humorous staff, and academics I admired.
I was also lucky that this was the time the internet and social media were beginning to take off which made it easier for me to find social events with like-minded people. I am so grateful to be a woman alive in the Age of the Internet.
Today I’m glad I followed my instinct and didn’t go all-out for money. For me this approach worked. If my career didn’t lead to material riches it did lead to work I could enjoy and a level of responsibility I could cope with, plenty of people-contact, and enough time and energy to enjoy a refreshing social life and the first steps back into dating.
And in time I met that someone special to whom I’m now married.
Life now?
I’ve gradually reduced my outside hours so that I combine part-time library work with my own writing and home-life. My husband works from home with frequent business trips in Europe so that we get to spend both time as a couple and time as individuals who bring something fresh to the marriage.
I am in a place that feels like home and I’m deeply grateful for it.
Yes, but…
Of course the big question is, if you decide not to have a loadsamoney career, how can you also organise your finances so that you can go out, socialise, pay for clothes or haircuts or beauty treatments, and not break the bank?
I’ll come onto that next time in ‘Poor but posh’!
πΏπΏπΏ
