I yam who I yam

There is a new sitcom on NBC coming this fall, titled "Outsourced."  It's about a call center that has been moved to India.  Some bloggers have suggested that this premise may be offensive.  They meant, it might be offensive to Americans whose jobs have been outsourced.  My concern was that some of my Indian co-workers might find Hollywood's interpretation of Indian culture to be offensive.  This, from someone whose career has been outsourced. 

I still have a job; just not the one I was hired to do, so I am luckier than some (although most days I don't feel very lucky).  I still maintain that we all need jobs, whether we are in India or Indiana.  If I were younger and spoke more than one language and was footloose and fancy free, I would consider relocating to a foreign country.  But not now - I'm going to be a grandma!  Plus, the older I get, the more I value personal comfort.

Recently I met someone in my company who, while American and owning a house in the US, has worked most of her career in South America.  She speaks Spanish but not German, even though she now works in Zurich.  In the past, I might have felt jealous of her life choices, but now I realize that, for me to have made similar choices, I would have had to be someone other than who I am.

The fifties are known as the Age of Regret.  Where does that regret go as one nears sixty?  It may disappear into the realization that, to live a different life, we would have had to be different people.  Finally, finally, I am starting to feel comfortable with who I am.  There aren't days when I don't wish I were more socially adept or more creative or less bitchy, and I do try to appear somewhat normal to the outside world.  But I am also trying to jettison the baggage I have been dragging along all these years.

(For some reason, I feel like I have written about some of this stuff before in this blog.  We each have stories to tell about our lives, and sometimes we have to repeat them ad nauseum.  I'll listen to you repeat yourself if you will cut me a little slack here, too.)