My Day Jobs #1 & #2

Day job. That thing we do with our time. To make money in order to live. My first day job was as a receptionist for a chiropractor. 1974. I think. It's hazy. After all, I am a living, mid-century modern design. Look it up. Wikipedia knows.

He was a nice man. Like working for a kind uncle. This would be job #1/2.

Next, and I consider this my first real job. Job #1. You know, the kind where you're hired by a complete stranger at a large company.... I was hired by Eastern Air Lines in Departure Services. Did that for about 10 years. I was a gate agent. The guy at the gate who lets you get on the plane.

I had my children in my 30s. My #2 day job. There's no W-2, no lunch break, no paid vacation. As a teenager, I didn't like to baby sit. I preferred puppies to babies.

BUT! I was lucky. I had the only best kids in the world. Ever.

I was a carpool, soccer mom. Sewed costumes. Subbed at their school. Baked cupcakes. Best job. Ever. Think Susan Sarandon in Stepmom. Only I didn't die. Would have made life easier for my ex if I had, though. If I ever write a contemporary Peyton Place-soap, you'll learn about it.

Don't know Peyton Place? Look it up. Wikipedia knows.

I've come to this writing thing rather late in life. How late you ask? Like really, really late. How many of you have even heard of Eastern Air Lines?

I was given an assignment in high school English class to write a myth. So I wrote one. MORNING GLORY. It was chosen for the school's anthology my junior year. My mother still had a copy.

One day, if there's absolutely nothing else to do, I'll pull it out and show it to you.

In between then and now, writing took on more of an escape. Journals, written to record momentous events for me. Journals, written to keep my sanity. The occasional short story.

The constant, creeping-into-my-consciousness thought that I want to write a book. A real story. With a plot. A hero. Better yet, a heroine.

I read. All. The. Time. Some I'd finish and think, "I could write as good as this guy." Others? Not a chance.

Little did I know the secret all published writers know. Writing? Putting words on paper? That's the easy part.

One journal recorded my first pregnancy. I started it the week I learned I was pregnant and wrote sometimes daily, sometimes weekly. I wrote of my fears. My excitement. The changes in my body. The complete occupation of my soul by this tiny creature I couldn't see.

I'd never had a weight problem, but had heard horror stories on how pregnancy ruined your body for life. You were going to be fat afterward. Forever. So I wrote down the measurements of my entire body. From my neck to my wrists to my ankles. I kept a list of before, during, and after measurements. "After" being a few days after delivery, as well as 3 months and 6 months later.

I can't share this journal with you. That little creature grew to be a delightful daughter and thief. She found it, read it, and stole it right out from under me.

I can tell you this. Pregnancy didn't ruin my body. It went back into place okay.

Thanks for stopping by.

Be sweet.

Susan