There once was a job I coveted mightily. In my imagination, this job had grown to represent My Career Success. I’d never been so excited about a job interview. My would-be boss seemed primed to hire me. You know how you get those feelings? Where you just know it’s going to work out and it’s all just paperwork? And sometimes it’s even true?
My would-be boss had asked me to call him to confirm our interview just beforehand. A formality. Well, I could hear him cringing over the line as he had to tell me the bad news: he’d been promoted. Well, good for him, but his replacement would be filling the open job. MY job. I remember his words exactly, “As far as I’m concerned, you’re still a candidate.” My heart was down around my knees at this point and it never got better. The replacement was pleasant and all, but the interview was just a nicety.
What lousy timing, and such bad luck!
A few years later, my husband and I took a second honeymoon to Italy, which marked in our minds the end of our freewheeling DINK (double-income-no-kids) status and our intention to settle down and breed like proper little yuppies. Only someone hexed my ovaries when I wasn’t looking, and it didn’t work out just that way. Two years and the best medical science had to offer brought us our perfect little boy, but not before the hardest, most tumultuous (and most expensive) two years of our lives.
Oooh, rotten luck, there.
Or was it, really?
As you could tell from my first vignette, I was a hard-core career girl once upon a time, and I defined being a “career girl” as working 40+ hours a week working outside the home, climbing the ladder as fast as possible in the most prestigious job available. But, after Bad Luck Story Two, none of that seemed so important anymore.
My decision to turn my focus to writing as a career (fooled you! I’m still a career girl after all) was complicated and too long to sum up in a pithy blog post on St. Patrick’s eve. But if my luck had been “good” all those years ago, would I ever have written Real Life & Liars? I doubt it very much.
May your own bad luck be bad only in the moment. Cheers!
A beautiful son and a writing career–I love how you count your blessings, Kris! Would you be in the same place if you’d easily snagged that job or had no trouble conceiving? Perhaps not. Thanks for the lovely take on “bad luck.”
I for one am glad that your life and experiences have landed you right here, right now–because now I get to be a Debutante alongside you!
Ug fertility treatments. The least amount of fun one can have with their pants off.
Remember the old saying? Careful what you wish for, you just might get it. We don’t always know what we want do we?
You seem to be happy with your life, and for that, you’re a lucky, lucky woman!
Hi Meredith! It’s so interesting to me how miserable I felt at the time (and did I ever feel miserable) and yet now I wouldn’t change a thing.
Right back atcha, Katie!
Oh, Eileen, we have that in common, too? The Michigan roots and mutual love of hockey are much more fun.
Marsha, I *am* happy and feel very, very blessed despite the bumps in the road that got me here.
What “good luck” those disappointments held for you, Kristina. Everything happens for a reason and now we know that ultimate reason.
Hi Larramie! Those reasons are never clear in the moment, are they, though?