Weekly Reflection: August 28, 2023
Monday morning. The beginning of the week. It is a time for reflecting the past week and the next week. It is a time to notice. It is one of those cloudy days that I want to stay in bed just a few minutes longer.
This week was a slow one for me. No interviews. No Screenings. Few meetings. I was down because I still had not heard anything about the screening that I had. I visited senior living facilities. Why? Was this where I belonged? Good question. I thought because I had always identified with the senior community and that I was a caregiver for ten years (although I was clear I didn’t want to be a caregiver again) that that was where I belonged.
As I drove from facility to facility, I felt like I was in a trance. I questioned why I was doing it. Although the conversations were pleasant enough and didn’t see anything that was outstanding, I knew it wasn’t where I needed to be. But I was doing this footwork at the recommendation of a local contact, as it was suggested that I needed to be known by these facilities. So ordered and received business cards, printed and stapled the business card to the resume and took them with me. I visited three facilities. The first suggested that I go see HR (which was clear across town in another building. The second was pleasant and suggested I fill out an application (which I did). The third was pretty dead, with few cars in the parking lot. They had a locked facility but let me in to explain why I was there. After I went through this practice, I thought about my dad, whom I took care of for 10 years. I asked myself two questions: Would he be happy in a facility like these? and Would I feel comfortable with him in a facility like this? The answer to both was No. So, how could I work at a place that he would not be happy with and I would not be comfortable with him in it? I realized that working with seniors would have to be in a different type of role or organization, even if it were years down the road when I was ready to work for myself.
The best and most impactful meeting was with a woman who helps people build accessible spaces. I felt a twinge of excitement. I get that way when I get excited that I might have an impact. I thought about my dissertation (on Telehealth) and how the things I was looking at had changed post-Covid, and how they had not changed much. I thought about the project I did in UX research on mobility equipment education. The more I am connected to the senior community, as we age, I realize the importance of it all. This meeting also gave me some options that I was not considering. So, I started to connect to those in accessibility and Telehealth to add to my search terms.
What I gained from this experience is that just like kinesthetic learning, sometimes you need to go through the motions to learn what you need to learn. So, in my case, I needed to go through the process of printing resumes and physically driving and speaking with these facilities face to face to realize what I needed and what was not an appropriate fit.
