Lessons Learned

This week I finished my Aged Care course. I can't believe it is over already, the past 6 months seemed to fly by! It has been exhausting, but fun and fulfilling at the same time. I have enjoyed being back in the classroom and especially loved my time on ‘Prac’, doing work experience in an aged care facility. There have been new friendships formed and I have learned more than I ever expected … and not just about aged care.

Here are three things I have discovered about myself:

I am better at studying than I gave myself credit for. Now this undoes all the hard work I have put into forming my low self-esteem over all the years since I dropped out of school, convinced I would never be good at anything. It turns out I CAN study and do pretty well at it. I just need to have the right subject matter in front of me. It makes sense really, if you are interested in what you are studying, you’re going to do better at it. I also got great comments from the teacher, which was a new experience - pride in my work is not something I have had a lot of as a student before.

I enjoy helping the elderly. I know, I know, it sounds like something you should be sure of before beginning a course in aged care, but I was a little nervous about whether I would actually like looking after old people. Doing the theory is one thing, putting it into practice can be quite different. Aged care means dealing firsthand with some unromantic issues, like fragile skin, incontinence and unpredictable moods ... sometimes the actual work is harder than you expect (and not just physically). So, even though I went into the course thinking this would be an industry I could see myself in, it was a relief to find that it does suit me as well as I’d hoped.

I like working, more than I realised. This really was a revelation for me. You see, when I was younger and had other jobs – before having children – I thought I hated working. This was embarrassing … it’s not something you can admit to anyone without being labelled a ‘dole bludger’. It gives the impression that you would rather laze around at home all day watching television. I now know that I just didn't have many jobs I enjoyed. After a few weeks of doing Prac, I was sad to leave ... I actually felt lost when I didn't have to go back the following week. Like studying, if the subject matter is interesting, it's more enjoyable.

To balance all these happy discoveries though, there was also the less pleasant realisation that my body and I have different ideas about what constitutes ‘enough’ sleep. For years now I have known that I need 8 hours of sleep every night (probably to make up for all the sleep I missed when the kids were little). When I was doing Prac, I set my alarm for 5 am, to get to work by 6. It has been four weeks since then and I am still waking before 5.30 every day … no matter what time I go to sleep the night before. One night I decided to get a sleep in by going to bed an hour earlier. The next morning I woke up at 4. 

The Caveman also used this opportunity to prove that he IS capable of running the house without me (mostly, anyway). I was like a new mother not wanting to leave her baby, constantly checking when I got home at the end of the day that all the important little tasks had been done. In the end, I realised he really can cope and I can relax a little bit.

Of course, a little bit more practice really would make him perfect, so my getting a job now would give him plenty of opportunity to impress me even more J