So Confused

I am so confused on what to do with my life.

I am happy, don’t get me wrong.  I love my sweetie, I have 3 wonderful kids, and I live in paradise.

I wouldn’t change any of that.

What more could I want?

How about a job that pays me what I am worth for starters.

I bust my ass in a retail job where I don’t have a set schedule and almost never have a full time schedule.  The pay sucks, communication sucks, but I do enjoy the actual work.  I work days, nights, and weekends depending upon what they schedule me for. Sometimes I have to stay late, on last minutes notice that occasionally puts me at a 10 plus hour shift.  Sometimes I get asked to work on my day off.  Sometimes I have 15 hours.  I never know if I will be able to pay my bills from paycheck to paycheck.  Because of the hours I can’t work another part time job without risking loosing hours at my current job since they change so often. I have no benefits and most likely won’t ever be full time or qualify for benefits.

Many of my readers know my previous job was a bit dysfunctional   Yeah, that is putting it mid.  We don’t need to go there but it was bad.   I only got this job to put my daughter through private school.

Before that I was a mother and volunteer.  I didn’t finish college.  My daughter was struggling with her own education at a young age and It was more important to help her than finish myself.  I gained some great experience as a volunteer that while many employers find wonderful they don’t seem to allow my skills gained there to be transfered to a career.  That is my perspective.

I have a dream of opening a coffee/bake shop.  I have started research and started working on a business plan.  I don’t know if I can pull it off.  Yes, I have some doubt.  Should I continue if I have doubt?  I have doubt that I will ever get an investor.  It is so much work and for what?  If it takes me nowhere is it worth it?

I chose to be a mom.  I chose  not to worry about a career.  Never in that time did I envision that my life would be so different that I would need a job.  Now that I am nearing 40 I am worried.  Worried that all I will have is crappy, low paying jobs, with no insurance and expected to kill myself for that pay check.

I have thought about going back to school.  I have thought long and hard about that business of mine I want to run.  I am confused on where to go.  In the meantime I struggle to pay the bills, and be able to pay for medical attention when I need it.  I had lived in a ghetto in Pittsburgh for over 10 years.  I lived with a moron of a husband in a run down house.  I had no ambition other than I wanted my kids to have better than I did.  I knew what to expect and it wasn’t much.   I have since moved on.  I left that moron and run down house and moved far, far away.  Trying to survive outside the ghetto is harder than I ever thought.