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[quote=Anonymous]Hello all,

It seems like many of the posts about quitting jobs involve people who are earlier in their careers and want to stay home with kids for a while. Or people who’ve jumped around a lot and maybe had multiple resume gaps. The advice is often that it’s really hard to get back in once you leave the workforce. I’m just wondering if their are any with experience like mine.

I’ve worked continuously since graduating from law school 20-ish years ago. I’ve had only two jobs, and I’ve mostly liked the one I currently have. In times where I’ve been relatively less happy with it, I’ve tried to power through or move around internally to get different experiences, because overall it’s been good.

That said, the last few years have been very difficult, both on a work and personal level, and I find myself really thinking about quitting to take some time to refresh and think about what to do withhold the next stage of my life. I have young kids, I had them really late in life, and I feel like I’d like to have some unrushed time with them while they are little. I have an elderly parent for whose care I am responsible (coordinating it) and with whom I’d like to spend time while I still can. The death of another parent — to whom I wasn’t really even close — relatively recently was really hard.

I don’t know. I just feel like I’m not really happy with work and kind of out of ideas on how to power through this time. I feel like I’ve been in a near constant state of triage with work, kids, parent, and some other stuff that’s too much for this post for so long that the best parts of life are passing me by. And I feel like I don’t have the mental space to even think through what I’d like to do with my career because I’m so busy with everything else. I guess I just feel physically and emotionally drained.

So I think more and more about time off. But then I worry about not being able to get back in to something (it would not need to be at same level or particularly prestigious). I worry about recession. I worry about health care (we could go on my spouse’s, but see worry about recession). Also I worry I’m crazy to give up a relatively 9-5, secure, gov job. Financially, we’d be fine most likely, but I do worry about that “what if.”

Any advice? And yes, I know I’m lucky to be even able to consider it, though I think it’s less luck and more that I’ve worked really hard my whole life to have some degree of choice. I just wouldn’t be so comfortable if I thought I’d never be able to get back into the workforce.[/quote]

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