My father took us on a road trip--I don't remember where we were going or who was with us except he and my step-mother--but it was the summer before college and I was going through the catalog and class schedule for my first year at community college as I rode along in the back of the van. And I remember trying to make sure that I had classes every day of the week, because I didn't want my dad to think I was slacking, even though that's what I really wanted to do.
I didn't have a car, hell I didn't have a driver's license until I was twenty, so I would be taking the bus to college--two buses in fact. I also got a job at the May Co, which was a high end department store before they went bust a few years ago. Think of a sort of Macy's West. I worked there four years.
At any rate, by the end of October, I'd had it with school. I was bored, tired, angry, frustrated, and rebelling like a mutherfucker, so I just quit going. My step-brother, who had moved back home at twenty-six so he could finish college, asked me one day if I was taking the day off or if I was done with school. I told him I was done, never thinking that he'd report this directly to my parents. It wasn't a good time.
But all my life, I've taken jobs because I thought I was supposed to, that my dreams were foolish, and work should be shitty, aggravating, and hard. And I also never felt really qualified to do anything other than be a busy little bee in the hive.
And then college. First, I graduated from communicty college. I worked full time most of the way through, and it took me four years, but I got that AA, something I had long considered unattainable. That I was not good enough and that I didn't deserve it. Fallout of being an ADHD child who was passed among family members like a used Kleenex--if my parents didn't want me? Who the hell would? That was the lesson I learned--never good enough.
Then my counselor at the JC I graduated from suggested I apply to USC. She said I would be surprised what they could do for me financially. I thought she was crazy, but I did, I applied. I also applied to Cal-State LA and UCLA, the other local colleges. I was living in Pasadena, CA at the time.
UCLA rejected me but I was accepted to UC Riverside. Great if I wanted to live in heat and smog. Ugh. My life and job were in Pasadena even if I didn't already hate the Inland Empire. (I found out later that UCLA only took 10% of transfer students--2,000 out of 20,000 applicants. That took some of the sting away). But USC did accept me (they accepted 29% of all applicants). And they threw a pile of money at me in the form of grants. So I went. For two years. Then my life imploded and my depression increased and I got to the point where I didn't want to leave the house.
A few years later, head more firmly screwed on, goals clearer, I transferred to Chico State in Northern California. They had an editing certificate program. I had long loved editing, doing papers and resumes for friends over the years, but never thought about making a living doing it. With support from my boyfriend / husband, I discovered I loved school, loved editing a lot, and that there was a possibility I could make a career out of doing something I loved. What an exciting concept.
I graduated in 2008, and the economy went to shit shortly thereafter. There weren't any jobs for love or money. Not even shitty, soul-stealing, cubicle jobs. And my dream of working publishing got ill, then went to ICU, then died completely.
Until a chance meeting with a woman who had just started a publishing company with a friend. We traded cards, had a few meetings, and in August, I was offered a position as a project manager and editor. I just completed my fourth book for them, a high-tech science fiction novel. The author lives in New Zealand, so all of our interactions were done via email.
His book was fantastic--the story was there, it had good bones, it just needed to be fleshed out. And that's what I did. It's published now, and this is part of the email I received back from him in response to my email that his book was availabale for sale:
Thanks so much for all the work on this. The book is so much stronger from your insightful, fantastic help...ps: did I mention you're brilliant?...I love the work you did on the novel. Just wanted to mention it again.
I'm doing what I love, and I'm getting paid for it. I work at home in my pajamas. And I can live off of that compliment for, well, the next year (with a nod to Mark Twain). I hope it lasts. *happiness*
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