Awhile ago, someone commented on the blog asking if I ever felt out of place. She said she lived a truly boring life, and it was good but unexpected, and sometimes she wondered how she even got there.
As I look back at the frenzy of this weekend, this seems especially relevant. I have a zoom meeting, a google meeting, and a phone call scheduled today, all business, all unrelated to the fact that the pirated copy of Magic Claims is still up. I’m not longer furious about it. I have too many other obligations at the moment.
The novel is sitting at 114,000 words and will be longer by the end of today. We have 4 scenes left, and I hope we can string them together into a good, explosive finale. We found a map artist, Becka of Tigeress Designs. I’m very excited about this, because the book desperately requires maps. Yesterday I worked on that contract, sent it with a w9, got the documents back, got the invoice, paid the first deposit, and today I will need to print, countersign, scan, and send back.
I found Becka on Inkarnate Discord. This was my first time using Discord for something business related. A milestone, I suppose.
Still need to find an artist for the crests. Each family has these elaborate crests in the novel, which serve as a form of ID. It’s an essential part of the world. At formal occasions, clothes match the colors of the crests. I’d like to get the crests drawn up, so we can have them as supplemental illustrations.
Is it a strange life? Yes. I did not see myself here when I came to the US years ago. I saw myself as a scientist working for someone else. That story is here, so I won’t rehash it.
As Gordon says, my life’s aspirations at that point were shaped by other people. First, my parents, who insisted on certain benchmarks being met: graduate from high school, attend college, select from a narrow array of majors they found acceptable, get an advanced degree, work in my specialty.
After I came to the US, parent influence was replaced by teacher influence. I’ve met many teachers who thought that their area of study was amazing, and since I was smart and receptive to learning, they wanted to mentor me and steer me toward following in their footsteps. They were well meaning, but Gordon was the first person who actually asked me what I wanted to do with my life.
Gordon says he often wonders how the hell we got here. When we met, he was out of the Navy and a freshman in college. His major was English, and he had vague ideas about being a journalist. He quickly decided that the English department wasn’t for him and switched to History.
Shortly after we got together, he started aiming for a career in academics, specifically teaching at a college level. WCU is located in an isolated pocket of Smoky Mountains, where jobs were very limited at that time. The biggest employers were the paper mill, the hospital, the casino on the Cherokee Reservation, and the college. Of all those, the college promised a much better life. Let alone being a professor, being support staff for WCU was considered an achievement.
Things did not go as planned. I think we can all agree that it’s for the best. But is it strange? Yes. Even after we became writers, unpredictable plot turns continued. If you showed me this week’s schedule 16 years ago, after we started professionally writing, I wouldn’t know what to make of it. At that point, my professional life was limited to writing a manuscript and gingerly handing it in to the publisher.
There is a sense of weirdness that permeates my life. Occasionally it twists things in unexpected directions. And I think it infected the kids as well. I tried my best to steer them toward a college degree. Instead, one of them is editing comics and working on a game and the other is on her second novel. She trunked the first one on our advice. It was publishable but it didn’t quite showcase her style. You only debut once, unless you change your name. It’s far better to come out of the gate with something that’s truly you.
It’s harder, I think, to have that much weirdness. It complicates our lives, but it also enriches them. For better of worse, if we had a crest, the words on it would read “Expect the Unexpected.”
Are there strange twists in your life? Do you ever look back and wonder how you have ever gotten to where you are?
In High School, I knew I wanted to be a Writer/Novelist. By the end of senior year, life happened (my dad passed away) and I switched my course to Engineering, because as the eldest child of 4 siblings, I needed to be practical.
I am a successful engineer now in my chosen field/niche, and have a few half-done novels that will not see the light of day as I have two little children and “momming” takes full time for me. I think I can write to my heart’s content when I retire LOL.
All of these comments are awesome!
just wondering which crest will be Hufflepuff in the new novel….
I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that there aren’t really any Hufflepuffs in this new world.
Slytherins and Ravenclaws as far as the eye can see! With a few Death Eaters thrown in the mix 🐍
warring clans….. stabby stab stab
looking forward to Maggie
Gotta watch those death eaters and Nazgûl.
I was going to be a portrait painter. Beautiful, ultra-realistic oil paintings that people would flock to buy for extravagant amounts of money— eventually. Even way back in high school I was just barely practical enough to realize that a career like that isn’t like something some company hires you to do, you will have to get your work and your name out there and somehow create demand.
So, I had a plan. I would go to a college with a good art department (not to an art school which would limit my options) and I would double major in art and in something I knew I could get a job with.
I was good at math, and many people are not, so I was encouraged by my math-teacher father to double major in art and math and to get a teaching certificate because high school math teachers were (and still are) difficult to come by and you will always have a job.
Teaching would be a good job to have while I worked at my REAL career because the number of hours is so much less than other jobs (thought my foolish, foolish teenage brain) and I would have summers to pursue my own goals.
I was definitely NOT going to be a teacher. My father was a teacher. My whole family on my father’s side were teachers— and they all married teachers and went on to have children who were teachers. I was not falling into that trap.
One week into student teaching I knew I would never be a full-time portrait painter. Sometimes, something unexpected (and frankly unwanted) is just too good a fit to deny.
So, after over 40 years as a teacher (two years at the high school level and the rest as a college math professor), my life turned out unexpected, but wonderful. I could have retired years ago, but I still get a lot of satisfaction from my work.
Some things are just meant to be.
My father thought that I should be a lawyer on Wall Street, but I am now a professor in Hawaii. Much better!
Dearest House IA, please know that 90% of us have our own weird lives due to the twists and turns of fate. I started out in medical college as per my father’s dream, only to move into mechanical engineering as a 3D revit designer of hospitals, water treatment systems and industrial facilities. I have been doing this for almost 45 years, and in truth, I still love it. My love for puzzles and creativity is well fed and thriving. So, relax we are all a little crazy; it is not a competition. Smiles and blessings and please do not stop writing and being you!!
My life is so full of strange twists that sometimes I even get a 360º and go back to the start. My first major (ish, we don’t have the same structure than a US college where I came from) was psychology, and my first paid internship was in management and human resources, as a psychology student. A change to medicine, a change of country, and a change of medical specialty later, and here I am working (albeit laterally) with management and human resources. Things are not what I expected 15, 10, or even 5 years ago. I have my fair share of boring, and I, strangely, like it. But yes, is a good life, just unexpected.
My parents got a divorce when I was 16. That completely derailed my life plan. I was half way thru hs, with the plan to go to University of Michigan and becoming a doctor.
Instead I joined the Navy. I picked data processing because that was the fastest I could get in. I knew nothing about computers, there were no home computers back then. Computers took up huge rooms and were complete mysteries to most people.
The random need of the Navy at that time has completely shaped my life since then. Even tho I have a degree in history, and did all the course work for a master’s in history. Spent some time consulting for museums…. and every time I ended up fixing their computer issues….
still doing that altho I’m “mostly retired” now.
If my parents had waited 2 more years. I’d be a pediatrician.
I love the idea of building our own family crests :). On mine would be the words Adapt Improvise Overcome 🙂
I think the twists are what make life interesting. Did I expect to switch from studying translating/interpreting to working in the field of export control and customs? Nope.
Did I do it anyway? Most definitely. If anyone asked my younger self if I saw myself exporting tons of steel in the form of industrial fans I would have called them crazy. But after some weird twists and turns in life that’s where I ended up and I’d say I’m content with that. Sometimes life is all about catching that one curve ball and deciding to shake things up again instead of just going with the flow 🙂
You just have to make sure that you can still recognize yourself.
The weird folks are usually the more interesting folks. And often seem to have more internal resources to deal with the strangeness that is life.
in my twenties i had a great paying job in manufacturing. i was able to buy a small townhome and build enough equity to sell it and buy a small house.
and then everything crashed down and i became legally disabled. i could no longer work and struggled to function at all for quite a few years while trying to get my medical situation under control. my job provided short term disability pay for a while. but i had to fight for two long frustrating years to get approved for SSDI.
now i live off $20,000 a year, and my housing is 60% of that. it is a constant battle with medicare to get my medications covered, but i have a good medical team now that is willing to fill out all the extra paperwork to fight medicare to try to get what i need. i live on an extremely strict budget. i have my dogs and they are what keeps me going during the rough times. thankfully things with my health are good right now.
and ilona and gordon make sure their books are available to libraries, so even though i have to wait my turn, i’m able to read all their books, as many times as i like. not all authors do that.
i never saw it coming. if you asked me back then, i thought i’d be married with kids and grandkids. when i became disabled, i never thought i’d live this long (50). i really honestly expected to die. but i’m still here, alive and kicking decades later! and able to find things to smile about.
Love reading about your plot twists in life!
I’ve had quite a few. As a kid I waffled a ton – Scientist! Doctor! Astronaut!
I finally got OUT of our tiny town by scoring entry into a magnet school (boarding school) focusing on science where I learned my brain and computers got along well – but I really wanted to be an engineer.
I started in aerospace engineering as my major in college, but you had to take a programming course (in Fortran) before you took your first CAD class (this still makes no sense to me to this day) and I was thinking about minoring in Computer Science (the Aerospace Industry was depressed at the time and I wanted a backup) so I wanted to take the CS major entry course. My advisor wouldn’t let me and told me I couldn’t cut it (without looking at my HS transcripts – shocker I know as a woman in the early 90’s – because he’d have seen I literally had that course in high school) – so I changed majors that day. I’m pretty sure looking back he wanted me out of his major by other making me change, quit or flunk out – but I was SO naive at the time. Turns out to be one of the best things I’ve done.
My career had a few similar twists and turns – mostly “You can’t do that” from others turned into “You flipping WATCH ME”. In spite of not finishing my undergrad, I’ve had a darn good career in IT where I’ve done just about everything – including quite a few that would have shocked me when I was younger.
I tell younger folks (now that I’m a “wise” 50+) to not be afraid to realize you don’t like what you’re doing and find a way to do something else. Life if too short to be miserable – find something to be passionate about – and if that ISN’T work, find something at least tolerable to help pay for that passion and maybe someday you can make a living with it – or you may find something you enjoy that you didn’t know.
For me, not much beats solving puzzles – and in essence that’s what every project I’m on is – a giant puzzle to be solved so I found a way to incorporate my passion into my job. Oh sure, there are good days and bad days, but it pays the bills and funds my other passions – like buying a ton of books!
My life, as far as me myself goes, has gone pretty much the way I always dreamed. It has been hard, but we have worked hard and have a lot to show for it.
I got married young, had 6 children, was a stay at home mom who took care of renovations on our very old farmhouse and ran our almond farm while home schooling. My husband built his own business up to 52 employees in two buildings we owned. Now we are retired and the kids are grown. We are still happily married after 42 years. There have been many times we were on the verge of divorce due to being incompatible, because we are very different people, but we have worked through them and love more because of it.
Our children have been a surprise.
Having a disabled daughter was never in my plans, but she is a treasure. She is almost 30 going on her 20th year of 12 years old. She loves animals, loves attention, argues a lot, needs constant input. We just moved her two horses here, and have been riding daily. She has peacocks, chickens, dogs, a conure which is more like a cat, and wants more pets.
One of our children has malignant brain tumors and lives on chemo and radiation, but he has a job he loves in Texas, runs a gun club, is active in his cancer support group, and has a lot of friends. He is an amazing young man (33), but I have to face the fact that he is not going to have a long life. Part of me doesn’t want to watch my baby die, part of me wants to be there to help him through it.
Our adrenaline junkie charming son, who hated math, is now a Branch manager for Chase near Seattle. Never saw that coming. He says banking is more like chess than math. He was always good at chess. He is an amazing father, and I think a good husband.
We were pretty sure that one of our sons was gay for years, because he showed zero interest in females, even though strangers would run up and give him their phone numbers. He said that girls are crazy. He is pretty cute, very smart, and very sweet. Then one day he brought us a very sweet and smart girl who had run in the same friend circles as him for 5 years. They have now been happily married for 3 years. He is a wonderful father, and a wonderful husband, no doubt about it. He runs the night shift medical laboratory in a hospital in Kentucky and they own their own beautiful home in a wonderful neighborhood.
I am thrilled that our eldest daughter, and both daughters in law, are stay at home moms and are home schooling. I didn’t expect that, in today’s society, but I had hoped.
Our youngest son, who was very quiet growing up, is head of cyber security for an international agricultural company, owns his own home, and has given keys to some police officers in his church who can crash at his place between difficult shifts whenever needed, because they live an hour away from where they are stationed. He has board game nights for young adults at his church, helps in the nursery, and runs video and sound during sermons. He is also the caretaker of our family tortoises since my dad died.
Life has been hard a lot of the time, but we have been blessed beyond expectation.
If you told me 10 years ago I would be living abroad, not using my degree I would have called you crazy yet I wouldn’t have changed the unexpected change for the life of me
Late diagnosed AuDHD + anxiety. After my diagnoses, I went through a process of grieving for all the opportunities I could have taken had I known the way that I felt wasn’t “normal.”
I was so afraid of being perceived at all–any attention, positive or negative, was horrifying. I never applied myself despite the fact that school was easy for me. I got my English degree (creative writing and editing) with honors. But I settled for adequateness and never considered myself “good enough” for advanced classes or grad school or going for that promotion.
I can’t really regret the choices I made because they got me here – owning my own home, working on my own novel, happily married for 9 years, with 2 beautiful children. But maybe I would’ve gone further academically and professionally, and I think I’ll always be a little saddened by what could’ve been.
I feel this too, on a regular basis. At those times I remind myself that, had I taken a different path, I might have been struck by lightning one day and never achieved some of the things that give me happiness now. In the immortal words of C.S. Lewis, “No one is ever told what would have happened.” This reminder works better at some times than at others, of course.
So, so many twists. I started out as PreMed. Did great, top 1% in my classes–except for my elective, a life drawing class. First C of my life. I immediately switched to become an artist.
Says alot about my personality, I suppose…not really good at doing what pays well, but great at trying out what challenges me.
“As Gordon says, my life’s aspirations at that point were shaped by other people.”
Needed to hear that for myself today! Thanks
i’ve known a lot of people that got the continuing education and several degrees, and never worked in their field. i wish we could encourage people to figure out their interests, but really how do you know what you want to do in High School? i once told my youngest sister that people are bluffing when they say they know what they want to do with their lives, and if you have no idea what you want to do, figure out what you DON’T want to do and work from there.
So very true! I wish it could be more normalised to try different paths before you find yours.
I get alot of imposter syndrome and societal flak/judgement for only discovering my career in my mid thirties. Reading Ilona and Gordon’s crooked path and those of others in this thread is so wonderful.
“First, my parents, who insisted on certain benchmarks being met: graduate from high school, attend college, select from a narrow array of majors they found acceptable, get an advanced degree, work in my specialty.”
This was me. All I ever wanted to do was work with animals. I’m not sorry I went to college, because I learned a lot there from a variety of fields that helped me in what I eventually ended up doing. But I never achieved my potential in the thing I was really good at, because my family never considered it a valid career choice. And I never achieved my potential in the things they valued, because I wasn’t as good at them, and they didn’t mean as much to me.
When I look at the positive impact I’ve had in this world, it’s almost all been related to my work with horses. They were my safe place when I was a kid. Someone recently sent me Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps The Score. It explained so much about how horses helped me navigate neurodivergence and trauma as a kid, and how they’ve enabled me to help kids – and adults – navigate neurodivergence and trauma now I’m an adult. I’m not certified as a therapeutic instructor/trainer, but the nature of the horse world is that it attracts people who need animals, because animals tend to be safer than humans when you’re not neurotypical.
I don’t believe anyone in my family has ever considered what I do to be genuinely valuable work though. If I had gone on to vet school and become a veterinarian, then maybe they would think I’d lived up to my potential. And I’d have been able to help animals and their humans, from more of a physical health perspective. But honestly I’ve done more good where I am. I’ve touched a lot of lives and helped a lot of people learn how to read nonverbal cues, how to problem solve, how to build good relationships. And I might have been able to help a lot more people if I’d started doing what I was really good at sooner, rather than spending so many years in useless attempts to make other people happy.
After 34 years of marriage, I found out my husband had set up a camera in our daughters’ bathroom when they had a friend over during middle school, and convinced them not to tell me twenty years ago, when they caught him. I now live with only my animals. I don’t want to clean up after someone who’s perfectly capable of cleaning up after himself, but can’t be bothered, because he’s just that special. I don’t want to cook for anyone who doesn’t appreciate the mere fact that I cooked for him, let alone the food. I don’t want to discuss how I choose to spend my money or my time. I intend to live my life for myself, for the time I have left. I’ll still do my volunteer work and take care of my animals. But I am done trying to placate people who refuse to be appeased.
Animal therapy and horse therapy is amazingly powerful!
It’s wonderful you’re able to provide a connection, safety, and place for self discovery to your clients.
You’re working magic in the ND community.
I’m working on getting back to that. Although I was able to stay in my home and continue with my students for the first year and a half after the divorce, I have since had to relocate closer to my extended family, a hundred miles south of my home for most of my life. I am slowly getting plugged into the local community. So my anchor is dragging a little, but I have charts. 🙂
My life started to take an unexpected turn when I was in community college. I was going to major in computer game design. Then I discovered how much math was involved. I switched to my favorite subject History. I have a BA in that with a minor in Humanities. I didn’t want to be a teacher. I started working in the public library. I tried to get an MLS, but my mom got sick, and graduate school didn’t work out. I’ve worked on the circulation side for 20 years and have no regrets about my career. Life never goes according to plan. Enjoy your college major and follow your passion, but remember sometimes you need a day job to get there.
I’m glad your life led you down the path to writing books. I enjoy the various series and re-read them as comfort/mood reads often. Our family motto would be Stubborn Nerdy Artist Found Here.
First of all, I am incredibly happy that your lives took such a unique path. The creativity you both bring into the world is awesome and has been a part of my own inspiration to start telling my own stories.
After graduating high school, I had no path or higher aspirations. I drifted around and ended up following a guy to another state- not my best decision making, but it led to everything else. I basically flopped around in my life, bouncing between unfulfilling jobs while tolerating a truly unhealthy relationship. Eventually, I was invited to check out volunteering at a local fire department. I went on to complete fire school and finally landed a job with an excellent fire department that enabled me to progress through the ranks to lieutenant. Now, two decades later, I’m one semester away from a Master’s of Science in Health and Wellness and focused on educating my fellow responders about mental wellness.
Never in a million years would my teenager self have believed where life has taken me. When I finally started embracing my quirks and ADHD and introverted tendencies, I started growing as a person. It’s all weird and kinda crazy, but now I wouldn’t change a thing.
What a brilliant journey you’ve had! Firies have one of the most stressful jobs in the world, your new path will be so powerful in effecting positive change and saving the lives of our Firies.
I’m also one semester away from completing my master’s in counselling. Congratulations to you! Stay strong!
I recently saw a YouTube video on this subject. An Englishman started in a private school, until the money ran out. In the public school, his history teacher’s method of teaching did not jibe with him and he totally failed. His teacher noted that he could not write coherently and his grasp of history was minimal. He, the student, was so inraged by this, that he decided he would learn the subject on his own. He studied in his own way and had the best mark in the history exams. He is now a well known historian and writer. He always teaches that it is not what goes right in your life that leads you, but what goes wrong.
I was raised Mormon by a polymath PhD who was slated to teach calculus at the USAF Academy before he suddenly got sent to law school to become a JAG.
I was supposed to academically excel. I ended up dropping out and having 7 kids. Then I ended up getting divorced from their dad and leaving the LDS church. While also getting concussed in a car accident and having my house flooded repeatedly. It’s been a disorienting few years.
I’m now remarried, going to physical therapy, and just now starting to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’m 43, and half my kids are grown.
Maybe I’ll be a chem tech at the local nuclear reservation? Maybe indie pub?? Maybe more ghostwriting for dentists??? I don’t know. Nothing in my previous life ever prepared me to end up here…but now that I’m here, I’m glad I made it.
Honestly, it’s kind of a relief to know that we can’t accurately predict the bonkers bananapants directions life takes us.
By the way–the thing I’ve hung on to through the violent transitions in my life have been your books. Since my concussion two years ago, and while my brain has slowly healed, I’ve read and reread your books nearly exclusively. They’ve been my anchor in all this.
Thank you so, so much for doing and going through all the things you and Gordon have in order to write what has become a cherished escape for me.
I’m so glad you found a safe place and enjoyment in the books. I wish you lots of health and good outcomes from now on!
I loved reading about your path to where you are now. The road less travelled makes for a more interesting journey.
I studied nursing (completed), chefing, teaching, nannying, meditation coach and too many others to name.
I’m just completing my master’s in counselling and am so grateful to have finally found my path.
Things definitely aren’t what I thought they’d look like, but they’re much, much better. I never thought I’d love, be loved and laugh as much as I do.
After years of false starts and shaky confidence in creating and writing. This week at the age of 34 I finally experienced the feeling of a character seeming to jump fully formed onto a page and a story shouting at me to be written down.
This is so wonderful to hear! All of it.
I feel this!!! I got a M.S. degree but started working in business consulting instead of my chosen field because… well I needed to work. Almost 18 years later with my hubs/b.f. and a 16 year old son and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Work has been hard, challenging, amazing, and full of travel. I never thought I’d be here when I think about finishing my Master’s thesis at the age of 24. Life is certainly unexpected.
I have a master’s degree in Chemistry. I am now a professional Tax Preparer (for the last 18 years). I never expected this! But there is a link – I worked in the environmental department for a chemical plant, reading regulations and explaining the requirements to the workers there. Now I spend a LOT of time reading regulations, and explaining them to taxpayers …
I agree; life is unexpected
our family motto growing up was “brains beyond belief!” because it worked for all occasions; good and bad XD
my current family motto with my husband and kids is “curiosity takes the cake”
As I sit here reading the blog, I wonder about how the universe God and whatever else drives this life aside from fungi, who decided to get me here very very often. I also wonder how I managed to stay alive through many shenanigans (nightclubs in cities I cant remember), things that could have got me arrested ( midnight swims in private school grounds and slight breaking and entering) and mental health illnesses that left scars to the psyche. I read for release, particularly this evening, from dealing with my kids mental health issues at 8, and I wonder if the universe still feels the energy of all those gone too soon. and I angry fake argue in my head with my real life screaming child that I will not let you die for some God damn dopamine deficiency that is just your shitty genes and not at all your fault. Your generation doesn’t have to loose any loved ones.
So thank you for being my happy calm place right now, while I walk this tightrope and try not to rage.
I think my strangest twist was doing well in high school but hating it, and then teaching high school English for 25 years and loving it. Still teaching online mythology and science fiction. Never went to one of my HS proms and then as Junior class sponsor, I put together 13 of them. Life is about taking chances, being open to possibilities, and swimming with your head above the water.
Yeah, I worked very hard to become a scientist, ended up becoming a food scientist with a master’s degree and everything and I hated it. Turns out I really like computer security and thank goodness I was able to get started with computers while working as a scientist.
This has been a beautiful blog post! The BDH is amazing! 😍
I started in programing, married at 18 but finished college (4 different universities in 2 states…I married a construction engineer). We had 3 kids, including a special needs son and I became a stay at home mom.
We spent most of the early children years overseas, moving so much. Once we got back to the states, the cracks in the marriage started to show, and when we lost our special needs child, we lost the marriage as well. It was time for next.
I had gone back to school after my last child entered jr. high, and become a nurse. I wanted to make a difference, and all the things I’d learned with my special needs son pointed me to that career. Now single, and in my 40’s, I became first a nurse, then a nurse practitioner. Funny thing, patients are a flow chart in my head. If/then.
Somehow I ended up always being the new hire orientation person because I loved to teach. After 7 universities, my biggest deterrent to going back to school for the credentials needed to teach professionally was “you want a copy of ALL my transcripts?” but it was time for next. I did in my late 50’s and ended up in working as a professor. With my computer experience, simulation fit, so now I work in nursing simulation.
I retired, but that didn’t take the first time. 🤗It might this next. I’m headed toward 70, but there’s always a next. Live is amazing!
My now-husband and I realized, when started dating after being coworkers for several years, that it was the third job we had encountered each other in. We worked in science-related jobs and he regularly brought samples in to a lab I worked in during college, and regularly came and collected samples from a lab I worked in after college. We paid zero attention to the other until it finally clicked after the third job together. I always picture Fate saying, “Hey, look at this person!”, and then giving a forehand smack when we didn’t get it -again! We finally figured it out, married over 33 years now.
“We all change, when you think about it.
We are all different people all through our lives.
And that’s okay, that’s good,
you’ve gotta keep moving.
So long as you remember
all the people that you used to be”
– The Doctor
This was very much my life up until I graduated from law school: “First, my parents, who insisted on certain benchmarks being met: graduate from high school, attend college, select from a narrow array of majors they found acceptable, get an advanced degree, work in my specialty.”
And then I went off script. For a long time, too long, my life was reactive. If my parents wanted something for me I rebelled. To make up for all the times they eliminated opportunities that I should have explored and freedoms that they denied me.
And then, at some point I realized that wasn’t living either. But I had no idea what it left me with because I didn’t know what I wanted. I just knew what I had and that I wasn’t happy. In fact, I remarked to my mother once that “I don’t remember what happy feels like.”
And then my husband wanted to separate. I didn’t want it. But once the decision was agreed upon I threw myself into remaking my life. But, honestly? I was shattered. For 20 years my life was entwined with another’s.
A line from The Wasteland by TS Elliot (English Major) became my manta “These fragments I have shored against my ruins.”
So I gathered the fragments of myself. And I started with creating a sanctuary. I love interior design (could have, should have, would have) and for 20 years I’d had to compromise on home decorating choices to accommodate someone else. So I chose to move out of state, closer to family, rented an apartment and then focused on filling it with things that soothed me, spoke to me, and represented me alone.
And that apartment became a chrysalis. It nurtured and protected me for 18 months until I finally had a breakthrough one night that my life wasn’t over. That I didn’t have to simply exist until death.
And so I took my first steps out into the world as a single woman. And I made choices that were true to me. And me only. Many would have shocked and dismayed my family. But I wasn’t reacting for once. I was being true to parts of myself that I had strangled my entire life.
And I discovered a changed world. Society and its attitudes toward women, sexuality, dating, relationships… completely different than 20 years before. It was incredibly liberating to realize that it was actually okay to be the real me. To live without editing myself every second of everyday so that I was acceptable to the world around me. And I could fully be myself and people would still like me and want to be with me. And that they would appreciate me. That I wasn’t too much, too direct, too loud, too wild, too demanding.
When I was growing up (48 here) society was about conformity. And now, individuality is celebrated. Normal is now referred to as typical and it’s suddenly okay to be atypical.
And my heart broke again. But this time it was to make room for self love. For acceptance. For healing.
So yes, my life is odd by some standards. I am neurodivergent, I am sex positive, I enjoy activities that would certainly raise many eyebrows outside of the community in which I now belong. But it is truly my life for the first time and I am finally happy.
Good for you. You have more than earned it, and you should never have had to earn it at all.
I enjoyed reading about your journey. Thanks for sharing.
You make plans, God laughs.
I wanted to study History, Mom and Dad wanted me to study Physics. Found out in the 1st semester of college that my mind couldn’t wrap itself around Physics, so switched to Biology (I’d be a researcher). Fall of the next year, met a boy. Boy got a job in Texas, I was in Louisiana, so we long distance dated, and the next year married. Then I decided I’d take a summer job (19 year old married people need $$) and then quit when the fall semester started. Nope, money was good working construction/maintenance in a chemical plant, so night school it was. No science at night, then change major to Accounting. Changed schools, changed to Business Management. Changed again because school was private and too much; UT-Tyler wouldn’t accept the business management classes into their program, BUT I could major in Technology with a minor in Business Management under the School of Education. Fine, I’d be a Vo-tech teacher. Graduated college (still working but at a new job) started grad school. Got told, our ex employee wants to come back to work and it was your job, so here’s your notice. SIGH. Moved back to Louisiana close to chemical plants were hubby made his money. Job hopped, had a kid, found a job within a part of the LSU System in Facility Management (Maintenance/Grounds/Custodial). Am now an Assistant Director over the department. Where did I start? Oh yeah, Physics.
We had long term plans for awhile, but everything seems to always go so differently from The Plan that we just stopped. The plan now is to be wherever we need to be (so right now, taking care of my elderly parents in AZ), live below our means as much as we can (because money may not make you happy but it sure as heck can make things easier), maybe save for retirement, and be open to whatever comes our way. It’s a weird little life, but it’s ours.
I am one of the office weirdos. I like spooky stuff, sci-fi, and fantasy novels along with a true crime obsession that is a life-long constant and it started before it became cool. I wanted to be a profiler before that even became a term and Silence of the Lambs made it popular. Wanting to work in law enforcement drove me in a big way but mostly I wanted to see what happened in the mind to turn someone towards murder. I am still fascinated. I always will be.
Fast Forward to today! I work in construction material sales, particularly masonry and tile, and I am good at it, but its certainly not where I saw myself. I love working with architects and designers and seeing visions come to life. I’m the oddball in the family too. I don’t act, dress or follow the footsteps of my ancestors in any way. I walk my own path for good or ill and I am mostly happy. Do I still want to profile? Yes and No. Yes because the drive to understand is still there but… No, because I think I would be a very dark and negative person today had that been my path.
Someday I want to write a book. I am about 33,000 words into one but I lost focus when work took over everything and it is still sitting on the side burner waiting for me to return. But I have lived a big fun life. I have helped raise standing stones in Pennsylvania, have explored enough philosophy and religion to fill a library, have been a professional artist, have raised a kid that was not my own and so much more. I have few regrets but I want to travel a bit and see more of the world. I want to see glaciers while I can and want to see a whale breech.
But through it all my love of authors and their creations have kept me sane. Meeting the two of you was a top bucket list item and I have the little Curran stuffed lion to prove I was there. The two of you have your own brand of magic and I am grateful that I have had the privilege of following you from pretty early in your careers. I have shared your books with countless friends and giving someone the gift of reading you for the first time still gives me a jealous little surge of pleasure. I am grateful that you ended up on the path you took.
I did not expect to marry a military guy, move very frequently to interesting places near large bodies of water, & retire as far as possible from my home state. That being said, trying for any kind of career that required working for other people just was not in the cards. Got a masters in what I thought I wanted to do, barely ever used it, but there was enough art in it that now I consider myself an artist. And a workshop junkie. What I learned at my first college was that everything relates to everything else. Mostly I gather information about things I am interested in & try to piece it together to form a healthy & interesting life. I read novels voraciously whenever possible. So many books & not enough time to read them all!
This seems like an okay place to say something that has been on my mind for years. I got the Western Carolina University Magazine today. I barely skim it. I was a non-traditional student at WCU and don’t have an attachment to my alma mater that traditional students may have. Anyway, on page 48 there was an article about Ilona and Andrew meeting at WCU and their success as writers! I was so excited I decided to share this. I became one of the BDH in my 40’s after reading MAGIC BITES and learning Ilona and Andrew had attended WCU!
Life does take unexpected turns. I never expected to move to “the mountains”. Never had any interest in going to college and certainly not going to the university in my 40’s, but there I was. While I have always been a voracious reader and like science fiction, I was unfamiliar with urban fantasy, which has since become my favorite genre. While I am no longer in the mountains, having returned to my birthplace, Florida, I will always be thankful to have found Ilona and Andrew’s books!
Thank you both for taking the unexpected path into becoming novelists. You write it, I buy it!
BTW, I finished both my undergraduate and Master’s degree via WCU at age 50 and worked in my unexpected field until retirement.
Hey fellow Alumni. I grew up in the area, up on Canny Fork, and still have relatives there, well, in Sylva now, but I doubt we would ever live in the mountains again. I have been trying for years to convince Ilona that I am now required, at 53 to return to my birthplace of FL. Not Orlando though. Probably the Destin area. When were you at WCU?
if u send me disciptions of the crests I can put something together if you want to give it a try.