When I finished high school, I wanted to be a hobo, traveling from one interesting place to another, picking up work to finance my adventures, hitchhiking, hopping freight trains, and sleeping by the road. The first obstacle was that I was not quite eighteen and no one would hire me. The second obstacle was that my parents sent the police after me. Thus, I went to college like I was supposed to, but I received no advice about what I should do there, so I took random classes in  astronomy, philosophy,  and vegetable production. I completed two semesters and checked out early enough in the third, so I could run off with the tuition and dorm refund. Waitressing should be a staple for a would be vagabond but I did not have the temperament for it, and never got tips. I worked in a carnival, stocked shelves at ToysRus for a few weeks before Christmas, and ultimately sold light bulbs guaranteed to last five years on commission by phone. I spent 45 minutes without a sale before I quit.

     I was browsing the want ads when I saw an ad soliciting candidates to train as a licensed practical nurse. The program was 12 months long, and cost $100 which included uniforms, books, and lunch. With a nursing license in my pocket, I could travel anywhere and be sure to find a job. I was accepted, and my mother reluctantly gave me $100 and supplemented my life with groceries during the twelve months I was a student. I found the study  was easy and interesting and above all— I liked nursing! I did my vagabond thing for six years.  I set out to travel around the world. I went West and returned from the East. I was a nurse in Baltimore, Bar Harbor, Maine, Hawaii, and Melbourne, Australia. I also picked apples and tobacco, and worked as a tram conductor along the way.  I learned that an LPN was at the bottom of the ladder, sometimes demeaning, and I needed to go up so I earned a BSN, and an MSN, and became a family nurse practitioner fifteen years after my impulsive decision to get an LPN license.  I loved my work and my adult identity was centered around my role as a successful FNP.

     From age 63 to 72,  I found a way to combine my love of travel, my love of nursing, and pay for my children’s college educations by taking travel nurse assignments. This also gave me the flexibility to write and travel to Slovenia and New Zealand with my husband. But how long can a person go on like this?

     My assignments became more and more difficult. I thought I was solid because had conquered electronic medical records but AI was creeping in even faster than ageism. My expertise, engaging personality, and folksy common-sense approach to nursing practice  meant nothing compared to speed.  In my last two assignments I was terminated, first for “spelling errors” and then they said “Patients did not like me.”  I was well suited for a job in my hometown that required a week of  specialized training in physiatry. I have no doubt that the nation-wide company  that sold these services to nursing homes did not wish to invest in a person my age.

     I feel a lot like I did when I was eighteen. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? As long as Elon Musk does not eviscerate my social security, I shall not starve, and if I can pay my property taxes, I won’t be homeless. I miss nursing, but when I think of AI and 15-minute visits in a medical factory, I feel sick.  I often thought I would be a writer. I spent twelve years researching and writing  Four Acres under Slavnik, and now I am wrapping up two years of promoting it. That’s 14 years of passion-driven writing.  Can I do it again?

     I thought I wanted to be a grandmother but my children are not co-operating. Maybe I should cruise the want ads in the newspaper (oops! Internet) until the magic connection jumps out at me as it did when I was nineteen, or maybe I need to clean Four Acres out of my office space and settle down into a new realm of creativity.