Getting Back on Track
Hello. I am a 45-year old divorcee who came from a small town in Ohio. Out of high school, I moved to Pittsburgh and put myself through business school. I didn’t have the support of my parents, as they had little money. Soon thereafter I married and had two children. My husband couldn’t keep a job, so I worked as a temp in a hospital in Florida doing Medical Transcription. I enjoyed it, but even better, I was good at it! They offered me a full-time job. As a (foolishly) devout wife, I followed my husband’s leadership and relocated to New Jersey, where again, his job didn’t pan out. Again, I sought employment, but i divorced him as well after seven years. I then met another man, we married and I left the work force to be a stay-at-home mother with my third daughter. I raised my three girls primarily on my own, as my second husband was a workaholic. After 10 years, and in the course of less than 4 months, 2003-2004, my mother passed away, my husband told me he wanted a divorce, and the following night I was struck by a drunk driver, making me handicapped for the rest of my life. After four surgeries on my leg, I defeated the odds and I am walking again, but cannot wear “normal” shoes and can’t stand on my feet for any length of time.
After two years of hardship and struggling to pay for my eldest daughter’s college tuition, it was up to me to turn things around. I returned to school for Therapeutic Massage. This wasnt’ just any massage therapy school, this was the best. They had a very challenging Anatomy and Physiology course, and I loved it. I did well, and was in hopes of working with the medical field with patients such as myself. Had I known that medical massage was good for scar tissue and healthy circulation, I would have sought this option of treatment earlier. In any case, as it turns out, upon graduation was just when the economy went belly-up. Jobs were very hard to find, and people didn’t want to spend their money on something so luxurious and “unnecessary” as massage. My second daughter is also in college and, again, it’s up to me to help her through it. It’s also up to me to be a strong example for my youngest daughter, though I’m getting older and less able to get around. She becomes 12 next month, and very impressionable. So, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I need to get training in something important, something rewarding, something I can do from my home and I can make decent money for a long period of time. It’s up to me to get myself back on track, it’s up to me to guide my daughters, it’s up to me to keep a home-base for my kids, keep our home from foreclosure, it’s up to me to make a new life for myself. As I think we all would say… “If only I knew then what I know now…”
WRITTEN BY: Rita Hall
