What I really want to be when I grow up

I had to smile when one of my favorite bloggers, RockZee, commented on my last post: "That seemed to take off rather quickly." Thank you all for the positive feedback, but truth be told I should have gotten off my ass and done this long ago.

This recent little freelance success has been eighteen years in the making. Or perhaps even twenty-two years! I headed off to college in 1986, with absolutely no ambition other than to punish my parents for making me go to college in West Texas rather than follow my boyfriend to school in California. (Sadly, that boyfriend dumped me ONE WEEK before graduation, but that is another story.)

I decided sometime during my freshman year that I would major in marketing and open a wedding consulting business someday. I find this rather hilarious now. I enjoyed planning my own wedding about as much as I enjoyed childbirth.

I spent three years meandering through marketing classes and struggling through statistics 101. I eventually married someone on a whim, mostly out of boredom, and dropped out of college. Through a circuitous route that involved divorce, moving in with my parents and the desperate need to move out, I came to work for a small weekly newspaper as a receptionist. One day the only reporter quit, and the newspaper owner knew cheap labor when he saw it and made me the new reporter.

I loved it. I went back to school and got a BA in journalism. Then I decided sticking to the facts wasn't for me, so I went to graduate school and got an expensive MA in writing. To help pay for all these pricey dreams I went to work for three crazy professors of education at Fordham University. Next thing I knew, I was teaching at an all boys high school in the Bronx. I loved that, too. I then taught at an exclusive girls school in Greenwich, CT. I didn't love that.

So after years of meandering, mothering and finally growing up a little bit, I have stopped dreaming and decided to just do it (Nike may be onto something). I have been pretty passive with my career path up to this point. I did some research over the last couple of months about freelancing, made a business plan and then got to work sending out my resume/clips. It feels like I have been holding my breath for the last two weeks as I embarked on my first truly intentional career path. I'm exhaling this week and taking it all in.

Now I want to hear YOUR stories. How did you end up doing what you are doing?

The difference a week can make

I think I might, maybe, actually be able to say I am sort of a freelance writer now. I have accepted one writing job and I am talking to two others. They are not in any way, shape or form glamorous writing jobs. They are mundane writing tasks that someone wants to pay me to do from my home (between filling sippy cups and cajoling someone to sit on the potty).

It feels a little bit like when I first got married and saying I was someone's wife seemed so strange. Being Mrs. Newlastname didn't seem very real, afterall the day before I was just regular me.

It looks like I won't have to resort to sending half my hard-earned substitute teaching paycheck to daycare yet. We'll see what this week brings!