Finding my way

Our Advent spiral, December 21, 2020

It’s almost a year since they sent us home. It is impossible to sum up how much the world has changed in this past year. But I think that’s okay, because you already know.

For me, this past year has brought a lot of exciting changes, including the biggie:

I got a full-time permanent job with a pension and benefits!

I worked my butt off for 3 years, and it paid off in a great job that I love!

This was the first time in my life that I:

• set a long-term goal,
• identified the steps I needed to get there, and
• crushed them one by one.

It took 3 years of hard work to get here: pep talks, staying the course, pushing myself into uncomfortable territory again and again, plus a lot of luck and, yes, privilege.

Another major part of my job journey was finding the direction I wanted to go.

I had really been lost for years, ever since I had to stop homeschooling and enter the workforce. Even before that, I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.

But the moment I stepped behind the circulation desk at the library, I knew:

I was home.

That feeling — that deep feeling of rightness — gave me the clarity I needed to start working single-mindedly toward my goals. Once I knew, I KNEW!

I dove headlong into everything I figured would help me along my path:

• I started taking French classes at Collège Boréal,
• I applied for every single full-time and contract job I was qualified for, in order to rack up hours and gain more experience, even though it meant leaving the library temporarily,
• I started my Library Tech diploma at Mohawk College,
• I applied for my MLIS at the University of Alberta,
• I GOT IN to my MLIS and started it in September 2020!

And now, here I am: Grad School Mom, working full-time, with a teen and a pre-teen, a beautiful cat, and the priceless feeling of rightness, deep in my bones, that I am on the best career path in the world.

---

There is a huge amount of privilege at work in every success story, and it can seem invisible if one chooses to ignore it.

I know at the same time both how hard I worked to get here, and also how lucky I am to be here. I don’t believe that if someone is struggling it’s because they haven’t worked hard enough.

I come from university-educated parents who were able to help me out financially so many times and in so many ways throughout my life. I don’t even know how many doors my whiteness has allowed me to pass through, but I know it’s been a lot. And being cis-gender and straight-presenting has also made my journey easier than it would be for so many.

I’ve spent a lot of years feeling guilty about my privilege, and I am still not comfortable with the position I hold.

I can only say that as an aspiring librarian, I am going to fight for justice every chance I get!

Advertisement