What Happens Next? Part 2

Life is a never ending series of endings and beginnings.  My youngest daughter graduated from high school in June and I didn't take a teaching  contract, figuring that I would begin to make a real career for myself in the business world.  However, it hasn't exactly worked the way I planned. Our area has a high rate of unemployment and let's face it, I have a strange resume because of all the different part time jobs I have held over the years to make ends meet, not to further a career goal. 

Suddenly, my self definition (see the first post in this series) caused me to stumble a bit.  I wasn't really a mom any more, my kids were grown and one has moved away, my role had become more like that of a coach.  I loved being a mom, I can honestly say that I spent every day trying to be better than I was the day before.  I was successful in some ways and a blazing failure in some as well.  However, my children and my husband were, and still are in new ways, my passion and my purpose.  I began to ask myself who I was and I didn't have an answer. 

I sent out resume after resume and really expected to get a job fairly quickly, after all I am one of those who never settles for second best and who always gets the jobs I have applied to get.  One resume turned into 10 and 10 turned into 30 fairly quickly.  Now, 30 resumes seems laughable because I am so far past that milestone.  All of this is taking a huge toll on my self definition; I am not even thinking about how society defines me or I would crumble completely.  After all, I am just another nameless, faceless, unimportant, unemployed worker which means that I have no real worth at all in this society. 

The question becomes, "how can I handle this adversity and move forward, even without a meaningful societal or personal definition?"