Self-taught

[thisnewday]

I've had a lot of different jobs in my life. I've been a school teacher, an auto mechanic, a framing carpenter, a set builder and a structural designer, among others. And I've experienced the whole range of challenges, successes and failures that come with being self-taught at most of them.

But the most important job I've ever done is the one I'm doing right now. It's being a grandparent who is helping to raise a now six-year-old grandson. There's no money in it, except what we sometimes spend for school clothes, Hot Wheels cars and occasional trips to McDonald's. And it's meant putting off certain things that I once thought I might be doing at this time in my life.

Once again, there are the daily challenges of doing a job at which the skills are almost entirely self-taught. But, because I'm a grandparent, this is sort of my second time around, another chance to "get it right," for which I'm eternally grateful...

LPK
LiveJournal
9.2.2009