Driving to Alaska was a fantasy right up there with pigs flying! My reality was working as an administrative assistant for over forty- five years, raising three children as a single mother, circumstance generating abundant de- termination, but few bank deposits. Yet, the concept of spending my first year of retirement as a volunteer in Alaska would evolve and, like the pigs, sprout wings to become a series of adventures.


Limbo is a precarious place to be but, due to the current financial crisis, that’s where many exist. Limbo - that space of limited income - no recourse but to work, not only for benefits, but for survival. However, when I received an email mentioning organizations supplement their staff with volunteers offering free room and board, my mind-set changed from nega- tive to positive. Since I would depend solely on Social Security income, receiving room and board in return for working a forty hour week was crucial. I would only be responsible for transportation to my destination plus incidental expenses. I remember thinking, I can do this!


Life, like history, is cyclical. Our transitions ebb and flow, although some of us seem to experience more transition than others. Over a twenty-year span, due to a grass- is-greener-spouse, I moved eighteen times across the country and back. Pioneering into the unknown can cause frustration and anxiety, but it also builds skills in plan- ning and organization. Approaching mature mystery years as one more transition is perhaps why my choice of a unique volunteer lifestyle did not cause trepidation. I was accustomed to the drama and trauma of perpetual change.


Before the era of independent women, we were raised to consider others before self. Today it seems self comes first, not selfish, self, as in responsibility to self before as- suming responsibility for someone else. This outlook is focused on reality. When twenty-something’s speak to their lifestyle, the reference is to “I” and “my” rather


40 Kalon Women Magazine May 2012


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