I’d have to say I’ve come full circle multiple times in my life. Each time the circle closed again, I was writing and content.
As a baby, most home movies showed me cranky and often crying. To this day, I don’t know why. But as I’ve learned over the years, when I am going against my core nature, I get “rather” unpleasant.
By the time I was seven or eight, I was a happy school kid, loved to tap dance, and told my baby brother stories to get him to try vegetables (“The Adventures of Spare Gus” aimed at asparagus, and was not one of my great successes, but I had fun making it up).
In high school, I was involved in activities galore, and I loved English. Every A on an essay or short story reassured me that my love of writing would provide my career direction. Then along came a guidance counselor who convinced my parents that I had no chance of making a living at writing. My next favorite subject was biology, and I knew I wasn’t med school material, so off I went to college for a nursing degree. My only writing was limited to nursing care plans and misery poured into my diary (back then no one called them journals).
In my early twenties, I buried myself in work after the tragic loss of my fiancé in a freak accident. I guess because I was a hard worker and a fast worker, I kept getting promoted. Initially I felt intrinsically unsuited to managing other people. I soon got sucked up by unfounded pride, and I was the world’s worst manager. I expected everyone to work exactly the same way I did, and when they didn’t, I went ballistic. It wasn’t my proudest era.
Fortunately, I met and ultimately married the man who became my best friend.
It is said that we gain wisdom with passing years. By the late nineties, I knew I was unhappy with my series of jobs because they didn’t fit me (or I didn’t fit them). I started 
writing again, but by then our finances had become dependent on our steady jobs. So writing was secondary, but ever-present.
As the new century began, I was hired for a position that used my job strengths and did not involve managing anyone else. I was content in a job for the first time since my very early twenties. AND it was undemanding enough to allow me more writing time.
I completed Autumn Colors, my first novel, which drew heavily from the tragedy I’d experienced in my twenties, but was written as a novel. My second novel, In Her Mother’s Shoes, came a few years later.
After retiring , I launched into Gram & Me, which morphed into STAR CATCHING, released in early November 2016.
And that’s the story of me. Yeah, I left some parts out. And some people. But this was supposed to be an “About Me” page for my blog, not a whole-life memoir. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! Thanks for stopping by!
JUST WRITE IT! 
Hi there. Phew what a story that was. I’m interested in what got you out of the management where you were promoted. What jolted you into a new phase of life? I have many such life changing jolts, often out of my control. Thanks for sharing and will now proceed to have a good old rummage around your blog. Have a fab week Dawn 🙂
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Thanks for the question, Andy. True confessions: I got out of management by accident. Every time I changed jobs during my career, I jumped from management position to management position, because that’s what everybody told me I was good at. Actually, I wasn’t – at least by my standards – but people kept telling me that, and I kept assuming they must be right, and before long I was miserable in each new job. Then I was laid off from one job, which seemed traumatic at the time, but called in for a job I’d gotten on a list for a decade before. It coincidentally required that I work very independently, and by chance didn’t require that I supervise anyone. I worked harder than most people around me, but that gave me satisfaction, and I wasn’t responsible for what they did or didn’t do. For the first time since my career began 30 years before, I was content in a job! And because I wasn’t managing other people, I worked a normal work day instead of the 10+ hours I used to work. I had a life, and I had time to write. Thirteen years later when I reached retirement age, I still liked the job, and continued part time for another two years. So a change that was out of my control threw me into a role I never would have sought but ended up liking, mostly because I finally had time and attitude to resume my first love, which was writing.
I’d love to hear about your life changing jolts! Have a great week! Tomorrow when I don’t have Easter company I will wander around your blog also!
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Hiya Dawn. Management isn’t all its cut out to be is it. When the topic is ‘jobs’ in my English classes I ask the students if they would like to be a manager. Most say yes and then we go over the drawbacks and their tune changes. For what you get paid vs the stress and isolation its just not worth it. Looks like fate was on your side when you got laid off. Traumatic at the time but later we can see the benefits. It happened to me twice. The second time I got my redundancy and came to China. Nice to be in touch Dawn 🙂
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I’m curious, Andy. What attracted you to China?
Sometimes things that seem bad at the time turn out to be the best thing that could have happened to you.
It’s too bad we have to progress so far in life before we really understand what life we want to live:-).
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Hi Dawn. Actually I’m a bit of a hippy and believe that following the right energy can lead you along a more interesting pathway. I met some Chinese folk up the top of Ben Nevis and then from there more and more ‘Chinese’ things started happening. Of course at the same time my interest in it started growing as I’d never ever thought about it before. I agree with you there Dawn, I wasted a lot of time in my youth but having said that I wouldn’t take it back for anything. Any regrets your end Dawn?
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My only regrets were some people I hurt along the way, particularly because of my management “style.” But since I can see that now, it has helped me grow and change. So ultimately I was where I needed to be at each step in my life (isn’t that an Eastern belief-that we are where we need to be?). Beyond that, I have colorful memories and a wealth of life experience, much of which gets reflected in my writing:-).
How do you spend your time in China?
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Ps: Just write it > Love the title!
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