I’ve been thinking about my career lately, and what do I want to do with it for my last decade of work. (Or what I hope is the last decade of work. I really, REALLY do not want to work full time until I’m 70.) I’ve been a librarian for over 27 years. I’ve worked in an academic library as a cataloger in a tenure track position, a circulation librarian at a public library, helped form an all volunteer library in my town, was an Assistant Director and Director of public libraries (both positions included cataloging, teen services, programming, collection development and more), and now head of a department in a large (for Maine) library. I’ve been on the executive board of my state professional library organization in different capacities over the years, am on the New England professional organization board, have been on committees throughout my state where I’ve had the great fortune of working with school librarians, public librarians of all sorts, teachers and academic librarians. I’ve worked with community members and town government officials and have had the immense privilege to receive the Maine Library Advocate of the Year award a few years ago.

As my term on my state’s professional library organization board comes to an end next month, I had decided to throw my hat in the ring for a different position on the New England board. But after rolling it around in my brain for a few days, I withdrew my nomination with the caveat that at least two people were already running. (It’s good to have choices, no?) My work life has been so stressful these past few months. My library is part of a new consortium and we’ve been migrating to a new automated library system. Not only are we all learning something new, but there are bugs and weirdness and training the patrons to use the new catalog. Oh, and the bugs. Did I mention those? Weekly meetings to try and fix some of the weird things happening in the system and agreeing with other libraries on rules and procedures and language. It’s…fun, honestly. But also headache-inducing. So besides the meetings for the system, there are internal meetings to make sure we know what we’re doing and supervising staff and dealing with patrons and the many, many difficulties some of our patrons are facing in their daily lives. And of course, now that Trump has frozen federal funding, the stress and tension is even worse. That’s my daily work load, but add the professional organization meetings on top of it, and the state committee I’m on, then you start to feel like it’s…a lot.

When I won the Library Advocate of the Year Award, I remember sitting with my friend, Jon, and saying, “Shit. Is this the end?” He is incredibly kind and said I would definitely be up at the podium again one day, but I’m not so sure and I think I’m ok with that. Obviously, librarians do not become librarians to gain attention or kudos. Usually attention is the last thing we want, but gratitude is always appreciated and often we get it on a daily basis from grateful library users. I mean, we need that since typically our paychecks do not reflect how important we seem to be to so many people.

I digress!

I think for my last decade of librarianship, I’d like to stay connected to these professional organizations, maybe be on a committee or two. I’d love to go to a few conferences I’ve never been to, meet new people in my field, learn something new. But I also want to see that next generation of librarian warriors come into the field. I’d love to mentor them if they need me, but also be able to watch them grow and open any doors for them if I’m able. It’s not easy for me to step back. I do love being in the throng of things, knowing so many people in my field, constantly being in awe of them. But I can still admire folks from afar and cheer from the sidelines, right?

Now that my son is going off to college soon, I want to think about my own future that is apart from my career. Hopefully I can take a death doula course this fall. I’d love to take a few workshops on memoir writing. My letters and phone calls to both my local representatives in the Maine House and Senate and my Senators and Rep to the Congress will also continue with the occasional protest of our current administration’s policies. My volunteer work with hospice will most definitely continue. I just started training to walk/jog a marathon. I’m also leaning into what my husband needs and wants for the last years of his life. If I have a decent work/life balance, caregiving might not seem so difficult. Maybe.

And my friends. Oh, man, my friends. Look, I have a very small family now. The family I created along with my sister, niece, great nephews, great niece, stepmom and the few cousins I like, are people whom I love and love having in my life. But my friends? Those people inject so much happiness into me by just being with them! I’d love to have more time with many of them, but our lives are busy and I know that’s not always possible. I hope to carve out a little more time for my lovely, wide variety of friends, too. Although we could go to protests together and that would combine a few of my passions into one delicious day. 🙂 Or travel together! Hell, I want travel to a larger protest with a caravan of my friends!

Everything I mentioned is how I want my life to be. Having some kind of balance between my work and passions and friends and family is a good life, it’s a way to “live well.” (I just read “The Art of Dying Well” by Katy Butler and part of dying well is really living well, too.)

So tell me, what are your plans for the future? Are you in a place in your career where you’re ready to dive deeper or step back? If you’re no longer working, what do you want to do with the rest of your life? What does living well mean to you?

I’d love to hear more about what you want from your life, friends. It’s a tremendously crazy world we are currently in, and our future may not be what we intend (no matter who is President). But I still want to hear what you hope for. I really do.

I’m here to listen.

Hugs to you. ❤