Frequent Mover Generation

Everyone,

I apologize for what has been a lack of blogs (for which many of you are quite thankful, as it gives you less to read).  There are reasons I could fabricate, but none of them good or necessary.  I have things to write and hope to share them with you soon.  First, however, a personal note of sorts.

I moved once again in life, this time from Santa Barbara to Santa Rosa or area.  I have moved in and out of a different place eleven of the last twelve years, and if that trend doesn’t continue I won’t mind at all.  I came to find work and housing – both essential ingredients in our life – and although there is still time, it is frustratingly difficult to find either.  How does one find a house, without work?  How does one find work, without a local address?  It’s a classic Catch-22.

I went to do what I have done in years past.  I went to the Democratic Party (my past blogs leave no doubt as to my party loyalty) to beg for a job.  I have experience, and I’ve always been of the opinion that one should not pursue a job that is not of interest to the applicant.  I know what I have always known, and becomes more clear every time I think about it.  Volunteers are preferable to employees, because you don’t have to pay them.  (You can ignore the obvious observation that a paid worker is more productive than an volunteer, which both experience and common sense prove easily).

What was I thinking, leaving the beautiful job of Santa Barbara where rent was low and I had had a minimum-wage job at Macy’s?  It wasn’t just that the house was being sold and that I wanted to move north to live with friends (if the housing gods allow that), though that’s a good  reason, and essentially what I told my manager.  No.  There’s very little excitement or personal satisfaction having attained a college degree and finding no more employ than convincing people to purchase goods and credit cards, neither of which people need (especially the latter).  It was time to move.  It was, as I described it on one resume, “to find employment better suited to my abilities.”

Young people – standard college age plus several years – tend to move a lot.  That’s the nature of the game, and I’ve gotten used to it and have no major expectation that it would be otherwise, though like everyone more stability is preferable.  We don’t all know what we want out of life – at any age -and moving from place to place to place is one way to find out where we belong, and with who, and what we should do.

Exciting as that is, it is challenging and frustrating, and we now live in a society where it is normal and expected, but society no longer does (if it ever did, adequately), provide the means life advancement that would be expected and hoped for.

Until I stop moving, I shall be part of the Frequent Mover Generation.