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As some of you may know, this last year has been one of immense change in my life. It was not a change I made lightly but, rather, one that’s been tugging at my heart for a few years now. Let’s see, where to start. Ah, yes.
I first visited California in the mid ‘90s. I enjoyed my visit, but I was at a different place in my life then, and I didn’t feel the need to return. Ever. Four years ago, a friend invited me to climb Half Dome in Yosemite with him. A high school friend and two others joined our group. That trip was full of adventure and was what started the tickle of change in my mind.
Why was it so great? I climbed a mountain. It was a really big, scary mountain. As is often the case with the most difficult things in life, they also turn out to be the best things in life. I also learned to pan for gold. I stayed in a haunted hotel in a gold-mining-era town that inspired another book (I just need to write it) and a screenplay (written). I went whale watching. I drove through quaint small towns and fancy big towns. I drove past Fran Drescher’s house, and I saw scenery so beautiful that I had to stop and tell God how amazing he was. I was in the land of adventure.
But how could I leave Michigan? How could I leave my friends, family, a house I loved, my writing room, a kitchen I baked in daily, my yard and garden, a business I’d built for 28 years, clients that I was friends with and, well, everything that I knew that worked for me. Although Michigan had its downside – winter, clouds, rain, flat terrain – this was what I knew worked. I knew I could survive here and support myself. Leaving would lead to uncertainty and, very possibly, failure. Where would I work in a different state? How could I afford the high taxes and high cost of living? Did I want to be poor? Was it worth it? What if I failed and had to return to my previous life? My job and home that I’d worked so hard for would be gone. I would need to start over again. Making a move across the country would be essentially killing off everything I had worked for until now, and so I didn’t. I stayed. I wrote books and took out my frustrations by baking every…single…day.
Then something else happened. I hiked the Camino de Santiago in Spain. The thing about hiking nine to seventeen miles a day through medieval villages and rolling countryside is it gives you time to reflect. You learn something about yourself. You stop and ask yourself what you want from life. Is this how I wanted to spend my valuable and ever-diminishing time? Would I want to spend it in the same place, doing the same thing I’ve done for the last 28 years? Did I want to finish the game like that; or did I want an adventure, a challenge, and a chance to do something that was my idea?
You see, living in Lansing was never my idea. My idea was to dance on Broadway. Then I found out you had to sing. A nasal and tone-deaf singing voice does not Broadway material make, so I had to change my dream. I changed it to accommodate the wants of my partner at the time. I settled in, started a business, and worked hard at it. The partner came and went, left town, and followed his dream elsewhere; but I remained. I remained in a climate that I didn’t care for and lived in a culture of hunting and football that I didn’t care for. I spent more time than I should have trying to be someone that I wasn’t so I could fit in with those around me and please them, but I wasn’t pleasing myself.
The next step to change came when I went to a convention for court reporters and realized that no one else, not even other firm owners, were working six a.m. to ten p.m. seven days a week. Those were the hours I’d worked for 28 years. What surprised me even more was that they all seemed to be making more than I was and working less. I quickly realized that I’d thrown away much of my youth working hard and trying to get ahead, but was I? My quality of life was so low that, every time I did anything besides work, I thought to myself, “I should be at home working on that transcript.” I could never live fully in a moment.
I returned home from the convention and tried to discuss my feelings with friends and relatives. One friend told me I was ungrateful for all I had. A family member told me, “You have a good job and nice house, just stay.” A doctor friend said, “I don’t see how you can make it out there.” Others continually pointed out cons like snakes, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, mudslides, and even a closeness to North Korea. Not one single person encouraged or supported me. My heart sunk, and I stepped back into the life I had that now seemed like a gilded cage.
One day I saw a job posting for an official court reporter in California. The pay would be enough for me to get by in the expensive rental market, the benefits were great, but it wasn’t where I’d hoped to live. I’d hoped to live in Santa Barbara. This job was in Orange County. Santa Barbara wasn’t hiring. On a whim, I applied for the job and was surprised when they called me to come out and take their test. I did it, had a panel interview, and was offered the job. My supervisor later told me that it was one of the best real-time tests he’s ever graded, and maybe that made me feel a little more confident about my choice.
On the same trip, I also interviewed with a freelance company in my preferred city, Santa Barbara. She took me out to dinner and offered to help me find a place to rent that would allow my dogs. She said I would make a similar amount as the court job.
Freelance is all I’ve ever known, so I was leaning towards accepting that job in my preferred city until one of the gals I tested with reached out to me via Facebook. She told me how she’d worked for the courts before and how much she loved it. In our discussions, I quickly realized that, if I went back to freelance, I would be stepping right back into the same work pattern I’d had for 28 years in Michigan. It was a pattern that I knew worked, but it wasn’t a pattern I liked. It wasn’t a pattern that gave me any quality of life.
And so, one dark, icy December day, I hooked a five-by-eight trailer up to my little SUV, put my two senior dogs in the back, and, with the company of one friend, left the only life that I’d ever known to try for something that I just couldn’t see how I would possibly succeed at. We drove across the country in five days, much like the pioneers in their wagons, hoping for a new life.
I feel I’ve emotionally drained myself on the dating topic for the time, and so I’m changing the topic of my blog to discuss my adventures in California, my struggle to survive in a place so very different from that which I’ve come, and how I’m building a new life. A better life. A life that was my idea and no one else’s. It hasn’t been easy by any means, but I’m turning a page. I hope you’ll join me.
My latest book is The Other Christmas List, and it’s based on my award-winning screenplay. It’s about a grandmother struggling to connect with her grandson, so she tells him the story about how finding her forgotten childhood Christmas List took her from a Christmas tragedy to an old city in Europe and rediscovering the magic of Christmas.