
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?
I’m never first. There must have been a mistake somewhere. 😀
I was educated to be a teacher and switched to library science at the end of my junior year. I actually ended up working as a waitress, a prep cook, and eventually as a store clerk because of the economy. I did a lot of part time stuff but don’t regret it. I had a family and sometimes you make choices that benefit them instead of making more money. Also, when you need to pay the bills you take the stable job you can find at the time. It all worked out well eventually. The kid is grown with her own family and job and my husband and I are comfortable.
Many medical issues, divorce, deaths in the family… all were major turning points that changed the trajectory of my life.
I’m not at all where I thought I’d be but it truly turned out for the best so I’m nothing but grateful.
I’m also grateful your life changed as it did because you bring so much enjoyment to my life!
I always had a vague idea of getting into publishing or editing one day, maybe working at a library. After finishing my English Literature degree I was so burned out on reading as work that I didn’t pick up a novel for a few years. I went into teaching young children and then worked at a winery. Now I’m a stay-at-home mom who helps out at school and is a room parent. I am conscious of the fact that my daily tasks are considered boring and unexciting, but I like my life. It’s enjoyable. I have learned to steer conversation from careers and jobs to interests and hobbies.
When you are old you will never think- I should have made more money and spent less time with my offspring! I’m retired now and treasure the memories of time I was able to spend with my kid. By the way, when a mother is fixing pancakes for teens in her kitchen, she is invisible. I would have pancake suppers for her and her study group with bowls of berries, different toppings and whipped cream. Amazing what you may hear!
One of my kid’s friends asked for the pancake recipe as a wedding present!
I studied 5 long years at a university at my father’s insistence. He didn’t care what I studied as long as I did complete a university degree.
My main focus was on having a career with a base in DK, but with lots of travel and periodically long stays abroad on other peoples dime. When I started studying I had to switch majors because the one I was doing, was with teaching in mind. I didn’t wanna teach! I wanted to see the world and not pay for it and help people at the same time!
So I settled on English and development work. I finished my thesis in 2012-the worst year to graduate in as there were literally only one field that was hiring: Teaching High Schoolers.
I figured I could teach English one year, try NOT to kill some rude high schooler, get som much needed income and apply to other jobs on the side. To my shock, the pay in this field is actually decent, if not good in DK. Furthermore, I discovered I actually have a talent for teaching. 10 years later and I’m still doing it and loving it. I’ve yet to apply to that other job…
Oh I’ve still seen large parts of the world- I’ve just had to pay to it myself. 🤷🏻♀️
All the time. I look back at my life and am amazed at how I got here. I can very much relate to you and Gordon on this.
I was raised in rural Missouri. The expectations living in rural areas are graduate high school (or get a GED), get a job or go to college, meet your significant other in college, get married after college, and settle back to where you grew up. I took the go to college route by going to my local community college before going to what would become my first of three alma maters. I completely smashed the “what you should do while living here” expectations. I wanted to go to medical school but switched to History (early American history was my focus).
Then, after my dad passed, I went to Oklahoma to go to law school. That didn’t work out. So, I went back to school to get a master’s degree locally. The only concentration I could get a master’s degree in public health was in health administration and policy. So, that’s what I got it in and fell head over heels for health policy. A lot of people thought I was weird. Then I couldn’t get a job in my field so I worked in retail at minimum wage until I was fed up with it. Then I researched getting my doctorate. I wanted to keep with public health, but where? After a long search (and lots of frustration), I decided to apply to one of the schools in Fort Worth.
After getting rejected for a master’s degree, I thought it was strange, and went to the school to find out what happened. I told the person who was eventually my department chair that I would get my doctorate. Whether it was in health policy or in biostatistics I would get it. I have the most ironic degree on the face of the Earth. I told myself after getting my master’s degree I wouldn’t have to take anymore biostatistics classes. 😀
I shake my head when I look back to see where I came from to where I am now. If someone told me over 10 years ago I would be where I’m at now, I would shake my head and tell them, “are you kidding me?!”
The master’s degree was from a school in the Tulsa area (just for clarification).
Patricia – https://www.publichealthcareers.org/
(FYI: I work here – https://www.astho.org/about/careers/ Main office is in Arlington, VA but everyone works remote.)
Since you’ve asked …. There have been a lot of twists in my life, most of them nowhere near so odd as several of yours, but the choices have almost all been mine.
I’ve never had anybody ask what I wanted and actually mean anything other than I was making a lot of unnecessary trouble. So I finally decided to hell with it and just went with what I wanted. It’s worked for me, and I do like living alone.
are you taking submissions for the crest illustration?
Hi Emily,
If you are interested in the artist commission, please contact me at modr@ilona-andrews.com and share a link to your portfolio or samples of your previous work 🙂
My husband very often says, “I don’t know how in the hell we got here.” Since I grew up in NM and we came back to take care of my parents…I can understand how a brilliant engineer/tinkerer/golfer/meticulous guy scratches his head over living in the wilderness, looking for lost cows, fixing generators on a regular basis and putting out rat traps every day this year … can ask that question! But, our crest would read: No Regrets and Never Back Up Further Than You Have To.
I’m glad you two became writers and that you share so much on the blog. I enjoy the wandering, the advice, the little gems of wisdom.
I was asked at my last significant birthday what I would do differently if doing it again: I had to say that, although I recognise the big mistakes I made along the way, I wouldn’t want to change anything if it meant I didn’t end up with the life, partner, (step)children, etc that I have now.
My husband is an artist and would be interested in doing your family crest. If you’re interested please email me and I’ll give you his email. I’m not sure how else to contact you guys seeing as how this is not a technical difficulty 😁
ModR answered this for another person, so I think it works for you too. Just look at the posts before yours. Cheers
Please have him contact me at modr@ilona-andrews.com with a link to his artistic portfolio 🙂
When I go on interviews, I hate the “where do you see yourself in 5 years” question, because it’s kind of asking you to be arrogant, IMO. Like you KNOW everything that’s out there and you know where you want to go. I came from a small town and went to the University of Michigan where the stadium at the time could hold 10x my home town. In my junior year I took a class called Introduction to Television. It wasn’t related to what my career was going to be, but it filled one of an elective slot.
I LOVED that class. I had no idea you could make a career of that. We town had one high school and we didn’t have any A/V classes so this would never have occurred to me to be a career. I changed my major and after graduation worked in television production (local news level) for about 10 years, then discovered a different career that branched off that job.
Here I am 30 years after college and my career is nothing like what I thought I’d do when I was in high school. So I don’t answer the “in 5 years” question, but it doesn’t allow for the possibilities that you might discover in that time.
I always say nobody is on Plan A!
So excited for the maps and the crests! If the crests are a success can they make some vampire house crests, too????
I know BDH always asking for more!
😊
I agree. Love maps and crests. Artistic in their own way. I would love a sewarshirt with one of the IA house crests! Can’t wait. Love all these answers. What a great question. Pancake mom I too want the recipe. Stay at home mom you are a goddess. It’s ok if no one realizes.
I would absolutely love a hoodie with a House Krahr Crest! Manifesting this!🤞
I wanted to be an actor, double majored in English and Theatre, and found my way to arts administration. Had a 20-year career there, lost a theatre to the recession, and now I’m a professional bookkeeper for small businesses. Who knew?
I feel like these crests are potentially a money making opportunity. If you had some crests made for whichever family we are going to like and want our own personal instances of a crest and then sold them on your merch store, I would buy one.
Like the houses in Harry Potter – what a gold mine those were.
I was going to get my PhD in Experimental Psychology. Was actually in grad school with my life planned out but my husband was unexpectedly transferred to somewhere I couldn’t continue my studies. Somehow I eventually worked my way into technical writing and found my “true” calling. How I got there was a long, strange path but I think I’m happier than I would have been. Guess you just never know.
In 1977, I graduated from UGA (MBA with a concentration in Finance). I fully expected to be some level of banker or finance controller. I got a job offer from Six Flag over Georgia as an assistant controller. But that was a really long commute from where I wanted to live.
I happened to have gotten an “A” in FORTRAN in college and somehow got a job offer of programmer trainee for a retail store chain in Atlanta. The offer was for the same salary as the controller job and was *much* closer to where I wanted to live. I worked there for 4 year and then got hired by IBM and worked for them 30+ years – very different than what I expected.
I completely get life taking a different trajectory (and the parents trying to guide them). My parents wanted me to be an anesthesiologist, even though I never took a chemistry class in high school. I have two masters and work in neither field, though I did work as a corporate librarian for five years after the second masters but grew tired of justifying my job to management.
I now work in IT for the government, which would have been unimaginable when I was in grad school or even 5 years ago when I was intentionally in the BTB private sector to not be that person in DC who was depending upon the government or Congressional parties using my job as a political token. But . . . Here I am and a public servant.
Life is most interesting for those twists and turns. Also, I am now an advocate for other humanities majors to IT Project Manager as a career- we are great candidates for our communication and reasoning skills.
Good for you. Civil service is still service.
I am still in school, but i get the twisting turning life ideas. i have always wanted to be a teacher or philosopher, but i am finding myself pulled more and more towards fiction and poetry writing. it could possible be because of a certain author’s books and blog posts 🙂 , but it might also be something else. *shrugs here*
also, on a kind of unrelated note, i am writing a short story that has some sword fighting scenes in it. the only good examples of sword fights in literature that i know of is in Kate Daniels. soooooo, i was wondering what the BDH’s general consensus on what the best Kate Daniels sword fighting scene was. 🙂
The Hugh v Kate scenes in Magic Rises ! And good luck with your writing !
Thank you!!!
Oh how can I choose? Fighting with Iron And Magic guy probably.
Two years ago, I had just started a new job being a legal assistant to a lawyer. I had just graduated with a good law school bachelor degree, and I was working in order to achieve a master’s degree and pass the bar. I lasted 4 months.
Now I’m the proud owner of my own second hand brand shop. The shop was a mere idea a year ago. Now, I’m not earning much money, but it makes me so happy everyday !
Life takes strange turns, I’m barely 27, and I’m excited for what’s to come.
Ooh the crests sound intriguing, I hope you find the right artist for it! My life has taken some unexpected twists and turns, although I don’t know if I’d call them weird. Like I got an engineering degree in college because it seemed like a smart choice, but never practiced in that field. And I never planned to leave Manila and work abroad, but have spent almost a decade working in Singapore. I always believe that things will always work out, even though we end up somewhere we never expected.
Yup.
A few years ago, I’d be in my own damn living room, and have the thought, “Where am I?”
I knew. I was in my living room.
But…this house? California? How?!?
I’m writing from a lanai in Kauai, watching the sunrise. We come here every year, more or less. When I was a kid I didn’t know anyone who ever went to Hawaii, except as maybe to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, deep into retirement, as a last bucket-list trip.
How did I get here? I know, but I really don’t know.
Oh always. I think the best thing you can tell your kids about life is how unexpected it is. That you will be a different person than you think and that is better than OK, it is fabulous!
I had an undergrad degree in political science and planned to get a Masters in International Studies because I wanted to work at the US Embassy in the Soviet Union. I found Russian history fascinating. But during my Masters program I had to teach undergraduates and I loved teaching. I switched to education in secondary social studies and English. I have loved teaching. My students were all I could have asked for. I have great relationships with former students. I still meet them for conversations and meals and, prior to Covid, we would do movies together. I have attended their weddings, and sadly, one funeral for a former student’s spouse. As a youth I would never have imagined my life as a teacher but I wouldn’t change it for anything.
This is awesome. Thank you so much. I do wonder “How did I Get here?” all of the time. I am very happy but life did not go the way I planned. I was going to be a teacher and my husband was going to be a chemist. Then I found out that I was a terrible teacher and he got a lifelong illness. We thought our children would have successful careers and someday move away but keep in touch. We did not expect them to have severe disabilities and still be living with us.
And yet I am very happy. I am now the director of a small library and everyday I am surrounded by people who love me. I consider myself very lucky.
A definite YES!
I am at a crossroads in my life. I am divorcing my husband of 21 years. Our life has been just of convinience for the last 10 or so. Now the son is 20 and starting his own life.
I am quitting my casino job (26 years) and start a new job with the Zürich Police at airport passport control.
I started with Korean series 3 month ago and started to learn Korean, just for the fun of it 🤪!
I lost 12 kg and started to like myself again. So: yes I am turning 50 next year and life is weird but there are still a lot of new things out there! 🤗👍
Greets from Switzerland
Inga
Go you!
Hey another Swiss girl and with a love for ZRH! Worked there almost 10 years.
Greets and I wish you as much fun at the airport as I had.
So many twists! Moved to Atlanta when I never thought I’d move south of my own free will (away from dear grandparents and home)… finally moved back after 5years of sadness .. I was supposed to be a marine biologist saving the world. Now I’m a microbiologist validation specialist for a bio pharmaceutical company… I know that doesn’t seem that far out but there’s a big difference in what I do compared to what my younger self imagined…corporate culture versus academia…in the mix I’ve become a horse polo mom and that’s changed my life because I never thought I’d trade beach life for barn life!!!
I took the path you didn’t take Ilona and became a scientist working for someone else. I like it and it’s very fulfilling. When I was a kid I wanted to be an author. I loved and still love reading. But it was much harder to become an author in my opinion. School was easy for me and less risky.
I never thought I would move away from my family. I thought I would have had kids by now. My marriage is everything I ever wanted it to be so that’s something good. Overall my life is the most boring. But plenty of people have it much worse so I’m very grateful for what it has become.
Needless to say we are thankful you became authors!
So true. My husband and I often said (after watching the Addams Family) that our family motto should be “we laugh in the face of disaster”. Because we did and still do. It’s just another disaster. Laugh and move on.
yes! I call it the lucky unlucky!
days after we, as younguns, in 2009 bought our house, a tree fell on it. the previous owners were still occupying and everything. our realtor called me up and I could tell something was up from her hello. when she told me the news, my 23 year old self just started belly laughing. turns out the damage was really minor. everyone was fine. we were planning to replace the roof anyway, so in my mind it was just a thing. but I’m pretty sure I felt the breath of relief through the phone when I took things so well!
if a tree is gonna fall on your house, it’s pretty kind of it to do it right before you replace the roof. 😀
I had not read your Road to Publication story until today. I clicked the link and WOW. I was tearing up by the end when you finally got the call and then listed some of your milestone accomplishments; proud of you. I’m so happy you kept at it. I can’t imagine how you got through the initial few years but I’m so glad you did! You are 100% my favorite author. I can’t imagine my life without your stories. Every series is excellent. I love your style of writing and I can’t wait to see what new characters and adventures you bring us!
I don’t think we get thru life with everything going as planned, we start with the concept of where we think we should go and then life happens, we grow , we change, our interests change. I certainly did not see where I am today, what we have to learn is to appreciate what we have now and roll with the punches as they come.
First and foremost: in your case, thank goodness for the beautiful, unexpected, (and might I add prolific!!!) “weirdness” in your lives! The BDH salutes it and you every day! 💕💕
In my case, I won an elite summer journalism scholarship in high school, got to college and realized that despite everyone else trying to convince me I was wrong I did not want to be a journalist, decided to major in sociology…then psychology….then political science(??!!!)….then to leave school all together, then had a very long career in IT (which I was good at but really hated…but bills to pay, you know? Yeah, not a great reason for making this career choice but it worked out ok and paid for the life I have now.)
So now, at the ripe young age of almost 65 and with NOBODY who can tell me a darn thing (though they do try!😂) I am retired and finally doing what I want! I am writing (poetry mostly), doing arts and crafts (drawing, painting, making jewelry, doing embroidery), reading (a LOT!), and creating tons of new recipes, spending a lot of time cooking and baking and then often giving the results away. (Food is my love language!)
So here’s what I’ve learned (and what I tell my college-age daughter all of the time): we aren’t just one thing (career or otherwise), nothing has to be permanent, there is always another page to turn over if you just look for it, it’s not the end of the world (even if it feels like it is), and it’s never ever too late to try something new! Oh, and if all else fails, take a deep breath (preferably outside), then eat some chocolate and maybe take a nap! 😁
I’m not a particularly creative person (I’m the one below with the good but truly boring life), but I LOVED your last paragraph! So true.
Absolutely! There have been some real challenges and I have zero regrets. Being true to self is not for the faint of heart. I personally am delighted you made the choice to “take the road less traveled”. What fun and joy your books have brought to others.
I think that unexpected twists might be the norm for a lot of people. I started college in mechanical engineering because my mom said it was a good career for a woman. I didn’t know what an engineer did, so I got a degree in music education. In the student teaching stage I discovered I don’t really like kids. I stumbled into accounting and have been there ever since. But I also wrote fan fiction, read fan fiction, and eventually proofread fan fiction for my friends. Then came the copy editing certificate because I loved editing so much. Now my second job is editing novels, and I’m leveraging it into my next career after I retire from the day job. This is life. Just like you, I started out trying to fulfill other persons’ dreams, and it took a while to realize what mine really were.
I graduated with a degree in Rhetoric and a minor in Aerospace Management….Wanted to go into advertising or PR for the airlines. 40 years later, I am a part time librarian and my passion is breeding and training bloodhounds, where I’m a fairly big fish in a very small pond :-). Life is weird. I wrote fiction and poetry intensively for 20 years but never published other than occasional magazine submissions. I don’t know where I lost that, and its the only part of my life that I wish I still had. But, if a time portal opened up and I could tell my younger self what I did now, I think I’d have been ok with it
I just turned 33 recently and yes, my life is very different than I expected.
I originally thought I was going to be a teacher then I thought I was going to be a c-suite executive at Disney. Life happened. I dropped out of high school, got my GED, and ended up working in health insurance.
It makes me wonder about the Kats living in alternate universes that turned left when I went right or didn’t drop out of high school in their senior year. 🙃
Some of the Kats in the alternate universes are c-suite executives who maybe love their jobs but still often daydream about having simpler lives because of the stress their jobs bring. Others are older Kats who dropped out of high school and are wishing they had gone back and gotten their GED because they think they’re too old to get it now. (They’re wrong.) 😁
This was sweet to read. Thanks, potential alternate Kat! 💜
This is one reason among many why I love the BDH.
Majoring in history is probably a better choice for people who want to write interesting fiction. If worse comes to worse they can Segway that into some type of high school teaching degree or a masters in library science degree without having to go the full ph.d route.
When I was in college I had a friend who was taking German classes. And I remember thinking “who wants to learn German?” I also thought I would never visit Germany, I imagined it cold and dirty. Cue ten years after that and I was moving to germany, where I still am 14 years later. And I now speak German.
Spoiler alert: Germany is not always cold nor dirty.
I wanted to be a veterinarian but switched to an education degree once I realized I didn’t enjoy the high level chemistry and physics required. I changed my major to education and was half way through my degree when I got into a major car crash. I had such a bad concussion I backed out of school for a year. I volunteered at a local rescue during that time and then went back to school and got a degree in non profit management. I ended up married and pregnant not long after. I was working for an educational nonprofit and loving my job but my baby girl would not take a bottle. I became a stay at home mom. After many years and many children I am in the process of starting a flower business. I have been breeding flowers and hope to release some to a commercial company within the next year. I have a book I finished writing that needs editing. I have created homeschool curriculum that I hope to release soon.
In grade school, my son had the assignment to ask 5 people what the major decisions were in each decade of their life (you could only pick one) and how those choices changed their lives. He and I have discussed that assignment many times as he tries to navigate working, going to college, and taking time off to thru hike the Appalachian Trail. It is interesting to look back and wonder what if you had chosen differently.
I’ve spent my whole life wishing to through hike the AT. But there was never enough time nor money to be without work for months. I’m 70 now and still wish for it, tho it’s now very unlikely. So I say if it’s his dream, do it now. Life just puts more and more constraints on your time and energy as you age.
I agree. My daughter hiked 850 miles of the AT before she ran out of money. But she is still glad she did it when she could. Like one of her supervisors who hiked parts in his youth, I couldn’t do it now; with rods and screws in my spine, I can’t carry a full pack. You don’t know what kind of blocks life will throw at you down the road, and experiences like hiking the AT are transformative.
I am the family member they talked about around the kitchen table. Went to collage in ’78 and wanted to go into Genetics. They offered a new major in Computer Programming but didn’t take it. Ended up leaving after a year to live in England and work as a barmaid. Returned (just before they deported me) and worked as a Bank Teller. Moved on to work for an Airline and traveled quite a bit. Then became a Ballroom Dance Instructor (very fun!). Then, to earn a living, worked in the Payroll industry. Ended up as a Payroll Systems Analyst for the past 17 years and will retire in 2 weeks. Full circle on the computer work and an unexpected life well lived.
Your journey, though weird, worked out well. Though sometimes we have no clue where we’re headed while we’re puttering along. You think you’re going in one direction and end up headed in another. It’s rather sobering.
My journey was weird too: First a registered nurse, then ditched that career to work at a Radio Shack, then at two radio stations and an accounting firm. When I moved to a bigger city I went to school to become a travel agent and graduated right at the beginning of the first Persian Gulf War. Timing was not my thing. Then I was a copywriter at a graphics firm writing ad copy for Service Merchandise, WalMart etc. That job taught me how to flip a sentence in a zillion ways and sent me overseas to Asia. Ohhkay, then.
Looking back I realized each of these previous jobs gave me skills I’d need as an author. Since I have a low boredom factor, this is the perfect gig for me. Weird, yes, but what I was meant to do. Just like you two.
In the early 90’s I was double majoring in Biology and Chemistry planning on getting into Biogenetics until my narcissistic husband (eventual ex) talked me into quitting college because it took too much time away from him and he wanted me to work more so he had more money to spend. After 10 years of working jobs I hated and grinding to get promotion after promotion and even often working two jobs I finally wised up and ditched the ex. By that time I had fallen into working in IT first as a Business Analyst then as a Project Manager and it turned out that I was very good at both and liked the work. Finally went back to college and finished three undergraduate degrees and two Masters. Ended up moving in with my parent to help them as they aged. My parents both have passed and I inherited their house which is paid in full and am 27 years into a very nice career in IT that I will hopefully retire from in eight years with both a 401k and a pension. I never remarried by choice and am very happy on my own.
Like many of the rest of you, my imagination did not take me to where I am now. The universe has shined on me, every hardship, struggle and scary thing was worth it. I have lived multi generationally since my kids graduated college. I want this happy healthy life for at least the next 30 years so I can see my grands leading their life and watch where their adventures take them.
Be careful what you ask for works both ways and has truly manifested itself in my life. It seems to me off-hand comments can really manifest themselves. Years ago, about 29, my daughter (age 12 then) and I decided we wanted a house that had a front and back stairway. Over 12 years ago her husband, their 2 kids and I moved into that house. We moved out of a duplex I co-owned with her brother. The weird, strange way we got here came with joy, love, pain, sorrow, struggle. I kept believing that the light at the end of the tunnel wasn’t a train. Thankfully, for me, time lessens the pain of events, reminds you of the joy and offers hindsight to see how the path really is worth it. With all that I am thankful every day for the life I have now and truly realize that I am so very lucky and will continue to be so. I hope the same for you all.
I’m just now learning to define who I am by my interior self, and not by what I do for a living. My husband used to joke my crest should be “Embrace the Suck” as,
when I look back at my life, the crystalizing moments were the most stressful or traumatic. When my back is against the wall, I have to trust my instincts, my soul, my mind, to move forward. I’ve learned to listen to those small voices now and it’s served me well.
I’ve just been hit by one. Started on a new promising career path almost 10 years ago and over the last few months felt so discouraged and finally had a lightbulb moment. I don’t want to leave my company, but I need to be doing something fresh and different.
Oh the road you never traveled that makes you think at 2am when you can’t sleep. I have moved around the country for work which has taught me a lot about myself and life. However, 10 years ago I moved back home to be around my elderly parents as I never wanted to what If after I lost them and now my 89 year old Dad lives with me. I always thought I would marry and have children which never happened. On the other hand I am relatively healthy have a good job that supports me and what I enjoy doing. I think that is what you have to concentrate on at that 2am I can’t sleep now thought pattern that happens.
I’m 70, been married 50 years and am an avid member of the BDH, which is probably the only unexpected thing in my life. I have lived a good and truly boring life and expect to pass on in the same fashion. I am content. For me, that’s the best I could have hoped for.
Yes, this! (okay, not the age or the married for so long thing, though I might get there eventually 😉 ) I can still recall that moment where it hit me that striving for “being exceptional” as everyone kept telling me to do was never going to make me happy, and that “being content” was where it’s at!
I too have a lovely boring life. I have a long term relationship and a child, neither of which I expected. I found my dream job before I turned 30 and have done said job at 2 different companies so far. (It turns out the job is fun in itself, but the colleagues you work with make all the difference…) My only worry is that the field I work in is undergoing rapid changes and I don’t know if my job will still exist in 10, 20 years.
Boring is underrated. I love it 😉
I totally agree! Boring is definitely underrated! Adventure is stressful. I strive for a comfortable life, well lived, with people I love.
If you went back to the me of 10 years ago and showed her my schedule for this week, I wouldn’t have believed it either. Fortunately, I’m quite happy with the twists and the life I currently have.
My wish for you and everyone is that we can say the same thing in another 10 years.
Thank you for creating this wonderful community and sharing so much of yourselves. BDH is my favorite fandom.
My family moved a lot when I was growing up, so I became aware of the changeability of plans early on. I’ve moved twenty-seven times or so. At one point in my mid-twenties, it was once for every year of my life. As an adult, I’ve had many jobs in a wide variety if industries, but I’ve studied in college and university to be a missionary, an artist, an author, and a journalist. What followed: the combined wear and tear of working retail at an airport and telephone customer service for an insurance company over seven years resulted in a slew of health problems. Those problems drove me back to writing and my first novel is nearing completion. For the first time as an adult, I love my life instead of just liking it.
Hmmm, where to start…. when I was 16 while watching TV I saw an ad for Bryman School. I lied about my age, told them I was 18, applied for medical assisting program. I took a proficiency exam to graduate from high school and went to medical assisting school. my boyfriend’s sister worked at a hospital and told me about a job as EKG tech. I applied (again lied about my age) and worked there for 3 years. Will fast forward to present, I worked for a surgeon and I became friends with a transcriptionist. She loved her job and said I should try it. I didn’t know how to type (seriously, I was a 2 key typer) but learned to type after work by using a typing program. I worked for the transcription company few years but somewhere along the line, I decided I wanted a more lucrative position and went to physician assistant school. However I was a single mother could not commit to the program as my child was more important. Fast forward to 2012, I worked for a Workers’ Comp Orthopedist with pretty flexible hours but had to work in office. Two years later, I was diagnosed with colon cancer and needed daily radiation with chemo at beginning and end of treatment. The hospital I received the treatment at was less than a mile away from the office. My husband dropped me off in the morning (he worked nearby and we commuted, real convenient) and a coworker picked me up. In 2017, my mother developed congestive heart failure and needed care. With a heavy heart, I handed in my resignation to care for my mother. One evening my boss called and said I could do my work remotely. I think I actually cried. I was able to care for my mother and still work. I was with my mother when she passed away in 2019 and will be forever grateful to him for allowing me to continue working and be with my mom. I still work at home for the same doctor 12 years later. However the most wonderful part of this story IS…. as I work at home I can take my work with me wherever I go. I have typed in the car while my husband drives. I have done this going to Devil’s Tower, Mount Rushmore, the Redwoods, to Oregon to see the solar eclipse, from Virginia to the Midwest, and on and on and on. I have worked in airports and on airplanes. I typed while driving in Hawaii, England and Scotland. I can do what I want when I want as long as I get the work done. The pay isn’t too bad either. 😊
“Do you ever look back and wonder how you have ever gotten to where you are?”
Yes, every day. I am no where near where I thought I would be. I went to school for science and thought I’d have this research-heavy career at a university or a big company. Instead, I write professionally out of my home. Am I disappointed? Not one bit. I like where I am and that I ended up in a different state unexpectedly. Life throws you twists and turns and I found that the best thing to do is take it one day at a time. It’s always different and interesting.
So here’s to the unexpected route and being happy when plans don’t come to fruition.
Hmm, not sure if it’s helpful but I have an old friend who is an artist and has created many a crest, because his world requires them. Mark Smylie, created the Artesia comic series, now an RPG, made a publishing house, sold it, very cool dude. Just a thought. He has a Patreon & also a Discord.
But yes, life is often random and unpredictable and things work out.
My own unexpected twists led me to, and then away from a degree in Geography. Based on that history, and as a general FYI to any aspiring illustrators/cartographers out there, consider this helpful guide to map label placement: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog486/node/557
Incorrect typography is one of the issues I see most often in maps, and it’s notable in the sense that calling a character “impolite” is less useful than saying that they are “more interested in justice than manners,” for example. It’s about clarity.
Very much looking forward to the new novel.
The reference was illuminating: It analysed why some maps are easy to follow and others are not. Thanks.
I decided several years ago that my life motto is “be interesting.”
There is a heavily implied “to myself if to nobody else.“
I work a fairly boring day job but I don‘t do bored. I decided on this life motto one evening when I was playing hide-and-seek with a snow leopard at the zoo where I was volunteering. I thought, this is an interesting life; I need to keep doing this kind of thing.
…hide-and-seek with the snow leopard was a lot more fun than getting trapped thigh deep alone in a swamp like I did this weekend, but I did say „be interesting“ not „have the most fun“ so I guess that’s on me 🤣
(The swamp is what we call Type II fun… I’m going to be a cautionary tale for all eternity…)
I grew up in Missouri, was expected to go to college, and “supposed” to end up married and teaching. Fate took me a different route, fortunately. While I did go to college (journalism and library science) I ended up working for a major insurance company for publications, then went into the medical underwriting area, and then spent the last 12 years before retirement in Systems. I did marry – but it was long past the “expected” date. We also have no children – another “GASP” moment in north Missouri and we’ve been lucky to be transferred to multiple states with our work.
We’re now in Atlanta, GA and so happy to be here. It’s even MORE entertaining to read HA books – and recognize Atlanta locations!
SO…yes, life does offer all of us different paths. It is one of the joys, I guess, of being “human”. 🙂
After school I joined the military to help pay for college. I was only going to stay in 3 years….after 30 years in the military…I still look around and wonder how in the heck I got here. I wouldn’t change it for the world – it’s amazing the unplanned turns that your life takes…
In many ways my path has been rather straight forward, High School, gap year, thinking about which degree -going from archaeologi to Engineering to chemistry ending in medical School.
but would i have guessed what my “just another day at the office” would be ?
No i wouldnt, the amount of weirdness an complete craziness life as a consultant urologist puts in my path is quite a lot.
Sometimes when patients are a bit shy about telling their story or about the examination I just say quietly that i have seen/heard it all … and usually they relax a bit after that….
Would i have guesses that i would stay with my high school sweethart ? Almost married for 25 years now…
The feeling of weirdness we know as a family, i have known since childhood that i was considered weird, happily today i am a place where my friends and coworkers like my kind of weird
I once asked my eldest daughter if she felt gender non-conforming and she answered
“No, just non-conforming”
I am deeply gratefull for what i have been gifted in this life and because of all the gifts it is easier to live with the sorrows that life entails
I try to think of life as a road with the purpose of travelling down it, and accepting both the steep, rocky parts and the pretty easy parts
And everybody knows that you need good books when travelling 😁
I’m a chemist. I started in biochemistry with the intent of becoming a veterinarian. Met my husband of 45 years in an air force disaster preparedness class. My mom wanted to see me do nursing teaching or secretarial(ewwwww) She did not understand my fascination with science or why I joined the air force. Women didn’t do that. Wound up working in aerospace and they would pay to finish a degree in metallurgical chemistry so I did that. went from shop floor management to purchasing and the to buying for the power company. with assorted bumps and humps along the way. its not where I thought I would be but it is where I am supposed to be 😉
My life has been lived with two guiding quotes:
“Do the next thing” -I got it from SciFi writer Rodger Zelazny, but have recently learned it is attributed to author Elisabeth Elliot.
“Improvise, adapt, overcome” – from every military member and their wife everywhere.
In my life, I’ve needed those quotes. Some days they were the only thing that kept me pushing forward. It’s a good life now, but never in my wildest dreams would I have planned any part of where I’ve been and what I’ve done.
once, I would have called myself a conformist. even as a child I needed the people around me, grown ups included, happy and feeling secure. I would make myself less, or quieter, or wait on a need. my dream was to live in a well maintained modest house with a fenced in yard, all things beyond my reach. I had a plan to eat ramen for a decade to pay off my student loans and to be a cat lady but with dogs. i was perfectly okay with being alone long term.
it turns out that there’s a difference between an overdeveloped sense of empathy and conformity. I have my house with my fence. it’s huge, and filled with the chaos of a husband and kids and that dog, as well as cats and a snake and a gecko. I’m a tattooed woman in leadership in a man’s field and I will make them squirm if they misbehave.
if someone told little kid or even teenager me that I would make it out of my hometown I would’ve believed them. If you told me I would have a rich life full of people, valued for my technical expertise and people skills, I am pretty sure young me would have blinked at you and backed away slowly.
Thinking about my life is always somewhat surreal. I feel like my entire life has been a series of major events that I spent the time in between recovering from and/or adapting to. In the end , I feel like I’m an everyday person making the best decisions that I can in the moment. I love your books because no matter what is happening in my life, I have a source of escapism where the exciting things are happening to someone else, and you know there will be (pretty much) a happy ending. Thank goodness you ended up doing what you do!! No other author gives me the same wonderful feeling as reading your books.
Unexpected turns for sure, especially with parental and instructor expectations. I went to university for fashion design, found my art side more compelling, switched schools and now have a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art). After graduating I got a corporate desk job due to health issues and the desire to buy a house. I continued to make art and sell it. The corporate job was like a bad relationship I couldn’t seem to quick. I left it in stages scaling back my work hours and became a part-time consultant for the corporation. Then it started to get abusive. In a strange way, the COVID pandemic allowed me to make a clean break with corporate and I am now a full-time artist. I am much happier being my own boss, making art!
My husband and I have very often looked at each other and asked,”what is this Life of ours?!”
We met in Melbourne in 2014, we’ve since then moved to Indianapolis, then Vancouver and now Montreal. We’re 1st generation immigrants, who’ve gone through all the stressful stages of an immigration journey from being international students, international work visa holders and now finally with some semblance of stability and permanence in Canada!
To say it’s been a heck of a journey, would be under selling it. We were already on this road even before we met each other, so it’s been pretty wonderful to have a partner now to face all the chaos with, both good and bad! Theres been a lot of, “well we didn’t see that coming”, as well as “I can’t believe we get to have this or do that!”.
But if anyone would have shown me this life of mine a decade ago, I wouldn’t have believed it!
All said and done, I’m very happy and grateful for this life of ours 🙂
Also my husband is a scientist! and while I am very proud of the work he does, I am very very very glad you and Gordon became authors!!
Delinski 1
At fifteen locked up in state mental facility. Looking forward to life of crime. One flew over the cuckoos nest for sure. An aid working there got through to me, I saw I had choices. Held back a
year, quit fighting and running away.
1965 got kicked out of High School.
1965 Joined Navy, Naval Air Helicopters. Served as a pencil pusher in Helicopter Squadron 6 off the USS Kearsarge. Two tours in Nam. I was not a combat vet, flew a desk. Don’t remember much about first time. Second tour we lost 9 of 16 helicopters. They gave me shore duty and E5 for reenlistment. Married, we had a son.
1970 Early out of Navy do to manpower downsize. Tried my best to become a hippy. Lost my family, found LSD, two years of it, nearly every
day at one point.
1972 Was offered entry into program with no name that I knew of. Let me have E5 back, new uniforms and a bus ticket to Great Lakes. Was assigned to gator navy, The old style USS Iwo Jima as support for the Expeditionary Force of Marines and their Helos’. Did a lot of strange stuff. Including the Yom Kippur War and standing of NYC the night Nixon decide to retire or not.
Also quit doing most drugs and learned to “drink like a man.” I cut way back on LSD, took it about once every six months, “rather I needed it or not” as we used to say.
1974 Got Honorable discharge, but “not eligible for reenlistment”. Worked on big 4 and 6 color sheet fed printing presses. Married second wife.
1979 We moved To Dallas, Tx. At this point my drinking was completely out of control. One year I had 13 W2s from small press printing jobs. I did find bartending, did really did it well, I bartended at a high dollar wild bar on the weekends, and ran a smaller place for the owner during the week. Lost my second wife. Wrote several computer games for the old Atari home computer system, after I published I destroyed my name by taking money and not delivering product.
1984 Had my last bad bar fight, they left me for dead. Got sober. Still sober. Police took me aside and told me they didn’t care if I was sober, I was going to prison for something next time they found me working in a Bar. Learned to paint houses and apartments. Went to work for sober Bookie, doing all the stuff bookies do. Became solo 18 wheel driver. Survived Cancer. Found out I had COPD with sever emphysema. When I could no longer pull myself up into cab I got a job Dallas Museum of Art as guard, then last but not least, my confessor hired me to be front door guard at grade school.
2014 Lungs got dramatically worse. Came home to die. Still waiting. Life can change on a dime.
This is just the main line, the side quests are where the fun, romance and glory was.
Holy shit, Joe! You and I did a lot of the same stuff, twenty years or so apart. Like if I didn’t know better I would strongly suspect that you were my long lost pappy. Great Lakes is, without a doubt, the worst place I have ever been.
I suspect guys like you are the ones I did paperwork for. That second time through was pretty easy. Only a few days to get outfitted and retested. Spent most of it in the bowling alley.
second time through Great Lakes for outing that is. Nothing laid back or easy about the gator navy.
My childhood dream was to be an air hostess, but I was too tall. (idk if those restrictions are still in place, but they were back in the day) I also soon realised that the problems I have with my ears meant it would be a poor decision. I had no clue what else to be, so I went wherever the wind blew me for a while. My highest education is a diploma in performing arts.
I am currently the administrator for the engineering department of a moderate depot of a large public transport company; having been a waitress, newspaper delivery person, bank clerk and a bus driver in between. Never the high paying jobs (Mama so disappointed that I haven’t applied my brain in that direction) but I’ve occasionally loved & never hated my life!
Following parental expectations, I earned a PhD in analytical chemistry… And became a stay-at-home mom, volunteering with the high-school music program.
The place my husband and I met blew up in a gas explosion; church we were married in, disbanded and torn down; maternity ward my where children were born-torn down and turned into a nursing home. We’ve decided all signs we were met stay together. There was no going back!
Life didn’t turn out like I pictured it in any way, shape, or form. But I have a wonderful and supportive husband, three great teenage kids, a solid group of die hard friends, and coworkers that I like and get along with. We have a roof over our head and three feline furballs running around. Things could have turned out a lot worse. And if there’s anything I think I missed out on, well, I’m not dead yet….
I graduated college with a criminal justice degree, and shortly decided I’d take work home and become unhappy. I now work in an office, and am a mom, but still I’m not sure at 42 what I want to be when I grow up.
Oh God, yes, my life took some very unexpected turns. I was a healthy, outdoorsy person with an art career that I loved–truly living my dream. Health issues put an end to that. I didn’t realize just how much my self-identity & self worth was tied up in my ability to create & make a living from my art. I went through a long period of severe depression. Some family, acquaintances, and (former) friends treated me very badly. They didn’t believe me when I told them why I couldn’t continue on as before.
“How hard is it to hold a pencil?” one of them sneered. Another one thought I should become a sign language interpreter. Righhht–I looked at them like they were exceptionally slow-witted & said”if I could do that, I’d still be drawing and painting.”
Anyway, I eventually learned we are more than our profession. Some philosopher once asked “take away your name, who are you?” Take away all your titles, including relationship titles, i.e. somebody’s mom, spouse, friend, your citizenship, your job, everything, and who are you? It was hard to get to that place where I realized we have worth simply because we exist. I can now draw for short periods of time; I also go through flares where I can’t do it at all. Yes it still gets me down when I can’t do what I love, but not nearly as bad as before.
I NEVER thought I’d write a book! I was a space geek for 20 years in the USAF. When I retired, I did odd jobs for friends, volunteered, and read LOTS of books.
But I ran out of books I wanted to read, and thought I could do better. I was wrong, at first. It took me a long time to write something worth reading, but eventually, I did, with a lot of help. Especially from my sister, Julia Huni, who followed me into self-publishing and is AWESOME!
Five years after publishing my first SF novel, I’ve got two SF series and a romantic suspense series out. It’s crazy, wild, and fun world that lets a techie turn into novelist!
Most definitely! Just got accepted to Grad school in my 40s and this will be a completely different career field than the one I have done for 20 years.
I have a BA and MA in English literature; however, I spent about 30 as a Technical Writer and Software Trainer. For quite a few years I was on an Alumni Board of the English Dept. of my university. I used to talk to students about being open to possibilities. When I graduated from college in 1971, there was no such thing as a personal computer. I ended up training people (mostly lawyers or maybe herding cats – hard to tell the difference) on software that ran on personal computers. Best part of job was traveling to many states and Canada. I had no idea when I graduated college that I would do this. I sort of thought when my husband finished his military obligation that I would return to university maybe get a PhD and teach literature. Never happened. I still teach computer related courses from time to time although I am retired. With COVID, our local Lifelong Learning Institute had to switch to online so myself a few friends quickly developed and offered a class on using Zoom so everyone would feel comfortable signing into different courses. Now I spend my days doing social media for my church and the local food pantry. Life has offered me many choices and it has been an interesting time.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
When I was 20 I just wanted to be a teacher. I wasn’t going to marry and have kids.
When I was 30 I found myself married with 5 kids and I was homeschooling them.
Now at 45, I have 8 kids and 3 grandkids, I have 4 kids I am still homeschooling and now I also have an Etsy store where I sell ribbons that I have dyed.
I never would have imagined my life looking like this. But honestly, my life is better than I ever thought it would be.
So, the House Andrews crest would have, (according to Google translate),
as motto; Inopinatum expectes.
Now…. how do we get the BDH on to the crest?
Maybe a challenge for those with artistic skill. (not me then)
I think I had to go through the worst parts of my life to find myself. There have been living in other states, accepting my family as they are, going back to college twice to figure out solely what I like & what I want. Making mistakes is a learning experience, you just need to remember what you learned!
When I was a kid, the grown ups in my life all pushed doctor and lawyer pretty hard. When I started figuring out what I wanted to do it was acting and writing. As I got older, stability became a hot button for me and I started leaning into teaching really hard. Instead I ended up marrying an army officer, traveling the world, having 3 kids by roughly 25, and making quilts of all things. ‘Rolling with the punches’ has always been my motto. 🤷♀️
My crest would say “All Over the Place”.
My first attempt at college was as a theater major/music minor as I had very high expectations of becoming an actress. Dropped out and went to work instead within arts management, living in Minneapolis, San Diego, and finally NYC. I eventually become a talent agent and had a writer client who was hired to write her poetry for HBO.com. This was back in 1995 and I had no idea what ‘.com’ or the Internet was. But I was game and decided to learn everything I could about it — which segued into working in digital marketing. Oh, and while I did that, I was in an acapella trio, played guitar/sang in a pop band, and wrote/recorded my own album.
Met my husband, moved to Pittsburgh, had two boys, and continued the digital marketing lifestyle working remotely for health tech companies. But, I still write songs, and now I’m having more time to actually think about picking up a guitar again, if only for my own pleasure.
BTW, today is my 59th birthday. Who knows what twists and turns will happen for the next 30 years!!
Happy Birthday!
Try @heraldry_design. Saw a bit of their work on Instagram. Maybe a search there would help?
I totally identify. Our life has twisted and turned in many unexpected ways. My family decided that our family moto would be, “And the Adventure Continues…”!
My uncle spent 27 years in USAF and I’d spent my summers with his family wherever they were so I’d been inspired. So I tried to enter the Air Force after college. After I took the officers qualifying exam and outscored trained pilots, you could see the $$ signs in the recruiters eyes. I knew whatever they said was my third option was where they intended me to go and it was navigating a big plane which was exactly what I wanted. Then I went for the physical and was told I could not join because I had a subluxating patella and therefore couldn’t march. I cackled. I’d spent nine years marching four hours at a stretch on blacktop in August in Alabama while playing a flute. But they wouldn’t take me.
My whole life would have been different if I’d gotten in. I had no backup plan so I ended up taking a job at the university from which I’d just graduated. We got the very first IBM PC dropped on our desks and were told classes would be in six weeks. Two months later when classes were nowhere in sight, I read the manuals and taught myself to use it. Six *months* later when classes started it was quickly obvious that I knew more than the computer science professor teaching us. By lunch he was so frustrated with everything I did working while his didn’t he said “maybe you should each the rest of the class!” So I did. Which is how I had a 40 year career in IT. Talk about weird twists.
Now retired over 10 yrs I look back at my careers (ICU cardiac recovery nurse, then getting a masters degree (while working) to be an Adult Nurse Practitioner as a very distant memory, thank goodness. Although several surgeons wanted to hire me asap, the nursing director hated NPs and nixed every job offer. That twist of fate you mentioned!
If you would have told me in my twenties that I would wind up alone, single once retired, I would have laughed. It bothered me (after a divorce) but I finally realized that getting married does not guarantee that you won’t be alone in your later years. Twists of fate can make life unique. I am forging on!
yay gordon for asking you what you wanted to do with your life. (for the first time you’d ever heard that?)
and yay you for hearing everything there was to hear in that question.
It is a good life just not what I originally dreamed. I always wanted to be a teacher and I am a teacher. I teach kindergarten, which is strange because at the very beginning I thought I wanted to teach high school English. I love teaching kindergarten. It is so much fun to see them explore and grow and change in the space of a year. I can’t explain how tangible it is to watch a child, discover new things and build their independence.
I also teach overseas which is completely unexpected. I never dreamed I’d live outside the USA. I am currently in Guatemala, but I was in Ukraine, Poland, and Qatar. This is my 16th year of living outside the United States. This life has changed me in ways I’ve never expect.
I want to say thank you I love your books and your blog and the merchandise. I’ve read them and every country I’ve lived in since I picked up Kate Daniels in Qatar.
I’m on my fifth career and only two of them had anything in common except that each one led unexpectedly to the next.
My first degree was inEcology and my first career was in soil conservation. I ended up doing all of our media and public outreach. It eventually that led me back to school in graphic design and journalism, and I became a graphic designer, which led naturally to being a web designer.
After that I was at loose ends and took a “Women in Construction” course which got me into a job as a hazardous waste technician. A shoulder injury ended that career since it involves being able to lift up to 50 pounds. Now I’m the administrative assistant for Capital Asset Management at a government agency.
So, no, nothing is as I expected when I was 20.
I was born asleep in the late 1950’s. My mother had been given gas during delivery “to ease her pain’. Knowing how mean my mother became when deprived of her cigarretes I sometimes think the doctors gassed her out self preservation.
As her only girl ( I had two older brothers) my mother had plans for me. First I was to be the next Shirley Temple except I was born with brown hair and hazel eyes and no musical or dance talent what so ever. All my cousins on my mother’s side were born with blond hair and blue eyes. My brothers had dark hair and brown eyes. I asked my darked haired brown eyed father why God hated me. My father kissed my forehead and told God didn’t hate anyone and we will survive this.
Then I was to be some sort of brainiac. “Girls with a face like yours should go into science” But in the early 1960’s cars did not have seat belts. My mom was driving while trying to light her cigarrete with a match (she didn’t like car lighters) she put the car into a ditch and I slammed head and neck first into the dashboard. I ended up with neck damage and a long term concussion. No longer on the path to major scientific discoveries. Still had the same face – sigh
During my recovery period I started drawing to pass the time. Aha! I was going to be a famous artist and she even paid for art classes. I can draw and I like to create but I am not gifted. And I still have the same face. Sigh, my mother realized I was her punishment from God.
At 16 My middle brother who only ever received A’s tried to help me with Algebra. After an hour and half he looked at our mother and said “you’re right she’s hopeless” and walked away. I seriously contemplated leaving this earth. A friend talked me out of it.
At 18 my father tells me I can go to college. Wherever I want and if I don’t want to come back he was ok with that as he could always come to wherever I end up. So off I went and became totally lost and overwhelmed. I had no life experience. I had a lot of fun experiencing life tho. My mother ordered me to study business so I would have a career and not be dependent on some man. With my face a could be a good scretary. I got decent grades except I flunked accounting. I just couldn’t stay awake. I took art and history classes as well. My favorite was and still is history.
Age 19 my father had a mild stroke that cost him hearing in his right ear. My mother left him as she didn’t want to be tied to caring for an old man. She moved in with my grandparents.
Age 20 met a boy and a year from graduation I got married. My mother did not come to the wedding. My father and brothers walked me down the aisle. My new husband said I was beautiful.
My husband’s first job required a lot of traveling on his part. I learned how to make decisions on my own and take of not only him but myself. Over the next 45 years I worked for a bank, a software company and a large high end retail company.
We planned on just two kids. We had two amazing boys both energetic and creative. I love being a mother. I loved being home with them. My biggest fear is that I would become like my mother as that’s was my main example of motherhood. But my mother’s youngest sister who was very sweet and kind helped guide me as I grew up along side my children. Because of my auntie I became a better person.
When our youngest son was four our third child was born. A beautiful blond blue eyed girl. My mother never met her and I didn’t reach out. Our children adored my father until the day he passed.
So I stayed home when I could, worked when money was tight and drove my kids on every field trip / sporting event I could. It is amazing what you learn while driving kids.
In 1990 my husband decided to fullfill his dream of owning his own company. How that came about is a different story but he started working long hours to make this company a success. I focused on my side jobs and the kids and we made everything work. It was not easy but we did it.
One by one our three children grew up and have started on their own winding paths in life. All three went to and graduated from college. All are successful and happy in their jobs but only one is working in their chosen field of study. I tried very hard through their upbringing not to be my mother but more like my father and my auntie. It was always in the back of my mind. My husband and I tried to give them the tools they needed to grow and be safe out in the world. When they fell we showed them how to get back up and move on.
When our oldest was in college my husband asked me “honey the marketing person just quite can you fill in until I find someone” so I did. Marketing was fun and creative. He didn’t hire anyone. He had a Controller who had terrible phone manners. Next question: “Honey can you talked to vendors when they call?” sure no problem. The controller quit. We hired an outside accounting firm (notice the “we”? Then came the last question “Honey could your take care of the day to day accounting so it’s all in order for the accountants?” Ummm sure? So the girl who fell asleep in accounting is now in control of the company’s finances and owns 52% of the company. We did hire a VERY good accounting firm to check my work.
Our daughter studied to and became a Special Ed teacher. As a student teacher her first classroom was for Emotionally Disturbed Children. After her first two weeks of teaching she came home for the weekend. When I came home from work she was curled up on the couch with Mungo, her five foot tall teddy bear. Mungo sightings are not good. I put my stuff down and sat down next to her panic thinking – she didn’t want to teach anymore, her boyfriend did something stupid. I opened my arms to her. My 6’1″ daughter left Mungo and crawled into my lap and hugged me tight and said “Mom, thank you for a normal childhood”.
When my oldest granddaughter was five she held my face in her little hands and said “Grami you are so pretty”
We have eleven beautiful grandchildren. Each one is a unique and amazing individual. These days I sing, dance, drive race cars, make pretty pictures and have passed the dinosaur flash card test. Yes, I still work full time.
In my 65 years on this earth my life has never gone in the direction it was supposed to or hoped for. I’ll never be a movie star, or a scientist or captain of industry but I do know is that I am not my mother and I am pretty.
AND I’m becoming blond one hair at a time. I should be a towhead by age 75
Thank you for sharing this, I really enjoyed reading it!
My new motto in life will be “I’m not my mother and I am pretty”, it strangely fits me too. What a fun life, love to read it.
+1 This was wonderful to read.
Thank you all for you kind words
Maybe you need to become a writer too! This was fabulous. Thank you for sharing. I think you’re beautiful too.
Thank you!
I started as a physics major and graduated with a degree in botany and genetics. Worked as a supervisor on a Hawaiian sugar plantation for four years, then quit and got a degree in electrical engineering. After working in the industry for thirty years, I retired. Now I travel to Europe three times a year and give tours of SF Chinatown. When I started my career, I never thought I woyld have this life.
I started college pre med, switched to education for a year but recognized it was not a good fit, scrambled for a major in the di else credits I had and ended up with a degree in Russian Language and Literature. graduated, spent 10 years in a convent, 20 years in publishing operations and now work in supply chain. I can an absolutely relate to the initial conflating what I want with external expectations, and the strangeness never ends. But it is a good life
I grew up in the early 70s. As the first woman in my family to go to college, my Mom told me I could be a teacher, nurse(blood!!) or a secretary. I wanted to be a lawyer. My mom said girls do not become lawyers. So I taught for a few years barely paying my loans. My dad had made me take the postal exam. I was contacted for a job and my salary of $12,500 went to $19,000 at the PO! Federal law requires everyone is payed equal and advance is on merit. After 35 years, I retired as a HR Manager. Never on my horizon at 18, but expect the unexpected
What a wonderful blog today. It just amazes me sometimes the roads we follow and often wonder about the road not taken
I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood.
And I? I chose the one LESS traveled by
…and that has made all the difference.
I dropped out of college after my 2nd year because I had no direction. I had been an English major because I liked the kind of structured writing required of English majors. In my opinion, it’s the perfect balance of analysis and creativity. I detested the literature, though, and I had no interest in creative writing or journalism or going into teaching or law. So what was I going to do with an English degree?! I let fear and uncertainty guide me, and I dropped out of college.
Fast-forward a few decades: For the last 18 years, I have created and processed contracts for a healthcare company. I think of it as a sales-support/customer service position. We work closely with our Legal department, because the documents we draft are, in fact, legally binding contracts. And what skills do I use in this job? Why, all the skills I developed as an English major who had no idea what I would do with my degree when I graduated. Haha!
My husband goes on discord all the ti.e and found an artist he liked. Her work is on the lighter, cuter side. His desc not mine. but it never hurts to check her out at @Lili_pupp. She’s on vgen.co along with alot of other artists
My husband died and everything we had planned died with him. I had to basically rebuild my future. I know how I got here and it’s been an interesting plot twist.
I grew up in – and returned as an adult to – a tiny town on the NC side of the Great Smokies near the Nantahala Gorge. I loved science growing up and wanted to be an astronaut, married the love of my life when I was 19 (he was 24,) and became a math teacher instead. We are still married 42 years later, but the most terrifying thing that could ever happen to a loved one happened 16 years ago when Steve’s routine surgery ended with stage IV cancer diagnosis. My world tilted and has never quite righted since. Three horrible and massive cancer surgeries later, I am so grateful he is still with me, but our retirement can be nothing like we imagined prior to a c-monster rearing its ugly head. Ilona’s post title fits with but for a couple tweaks: it’s still a WONDERFUL life, just unexpected.
I grew up half-hillbilly, half-working class German. My earliest memories take place in rural Tennessee trailer parks and literal hollers with some less than stable (mentally, emotionally, and financially) adults in charge of my raising. I wound up getting a PhD and now live and work in Berkeley, CA with my wonderful husband and kids. I’ve had amazing adventures, I have a job I love, and a community I adore—but I sometimes feel like a bit of an imposter. To say there were twists and turns in my life is an understatement. There were TWISTS. And there were TURNS. I am often astonished at my own good fortune (especially having studied economic mobility as part of my work, I can tell you my trajectory is vanishingly rare, myths of the American Dream notwithstanding).
As a pseudo-immigrant to the US, I’ve started to find other people’s migration stories interesting and will ask to hear their story.
My life’s goal was always having my own apartment and a fulfilling career, which the glass ceiling in Mexico would not allow me to get satisfactorily. Husband and kids were secondary. I just never expected never wanting to “settle” for anything meant I’d still be single and kidless at 41, and now in between jobs. Oh well.
I was also born in Houston shortly before Mexico’s big recession, so my father’s business capital was worth much less than before and we had to go back. I might have grown up a Houston native!
My mother, however, did have great “What could have been” story. In her mid-twenties her mother needed to get treated for pancreatic cancer, so she accompanied her to stay in Washington, D.C. for a few months.
In her off time, she took ballet lessons at a local studio. My mother had been studying classical ballet since she was 3 years old, and the instructor was so impressed with her technique that he told her: You come study with me and I will make you a professional ballerina.
Being a professional ballerina was probably one of her far-off dreams, and so was living in the US. But, my mother had just gotten married and her new husband was waiting for her back in Mexico. But if her answer had been different, my brother and I might have never been born!
I hate MATH…all the math. It was by far my worst subject in school, elementary through a bachelor’s degree. What do I do now? I’m a high level sales analyst and very well regarded for my work. 🤦🏼♀️
I always thought I’d get married right out of high school, typical of my age and the location, and the expectations of my parents. However, when the love of my life broke up with me and got married a week later, I chose to go to college. Originally, I studied art, but ended up several years later (I had to work in between to afford college) with a Bachelors in Business Administration. I worked as a business director. When I was 35, my husband unexpectedly died. I couldn’t handle it. I developed fibromyalgia to go with my already existing asthma, and could no longer work effectively. I’ve been fully disabled since (I’m 63). NOT the way I was expecting my life to be. But, I’ve returned to art and keep myself entertained with it and my grandchildren. It is what it is, and it’s been my choice to try (usually successfully) to make the best of it.
Sometimes what you don’t expect in life is what’s fun. I spent 47 years working in the medical field. Interesting? Yes. Fun? Absolutely not.
Fun was editing the English subtitle scripts for just over 200 episodes of Japanese TV.
Fun was writing an 8 volume YA/Sci-Fi/Light Urban Fantasy/Epic novel series and posting it online (Just over 80K chapter views so far, which, while not bad, isn’t all that great either.
Even more fun was going back and editing it. Yes, I found out that I LOVE editing.
Official publishing – won’t happen. I don’t think there’s a market for a series that spans from 7th century Italy to a 25th century multiverse society.
BUT, as Ilona said, it’s the writing that makes you happy! I’m retired, and am blessed that I don’t need money enough to fight to get it published.
Maybe I’ll be lucky in my next life and be a full time writer/editor. hehe
My life is nothing like what I imagined it would be, but I am happy with my family. My husband and I had one son after a decade of trying.
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.