When I think about where I came from and where I am now, I’m amazed. You have no idea what you can do until you do it. When my lawyer called me that day in August 2013 and told me that my divorce was final and that I was a free woman, I had to leave work because I felt sick to my stomach. I took a long lunch, gathered my composure and went back to work. I was still living with my husband at the time because I was only making $10 an hour. How do you live on that? I lived with him (separately) until November of that year. That was an awful time. Almost as awful as the entire year that it took for us to be officially divorced. I was terrified. How was I going to support myself? How was I going to make it on my own? I’d been married for 31 of the 51 years that I’d been on this planet. That’s all I knew. I worked full time while he was in college and until I got pregnant with my daughter. When my daughter was about a year old, I went back to work and worked until I got pregnant with my son. After that, I stayed home and raised my kids.

I raised kids. I volunteered at school, at church and on the ball field. I volunteered wherever they needed me. For a while, we struggled with money but he changed jobs and made enough that I didn’t have to work. We hit a pretty rough spot in 2001. Now, when I look back, I should’ve left him then. I don’t want to go into details about why, this is about me and my journey through it. So, when I looked at where I was and how I would take care of myself, I decided to go to college. I went to our local Community College and earned a degree in graphic design. It took me 4 years to get a 2 year degree. I studied and did homework at practices, ballgames and just about wherever I could. I graduated with a 4.0. 🙂

We live in a town full of “professionals”. I was told that having a two year degree wasn’t enough. I went to work at a small printing company for a while then ended up working at Costco in the photo lab for a while too. Ironically, I quit because I didn’t like working retail hours. It seemed like when I was at home, he was working and vice versa. Once the kids were grown, he was making very good money so I dabbled in photography.

Fast forward a few years, I’m getting divorced with very little work experience other than being a wife and mom. I started sending out resumes and didn’t get much interest. I went to a placement service and they found me a job at a promotional products company. Pens, Koozies, ball caps, t-shirts, anything you could slap a logo on, we could get and order you a gazillion. That didn’t work out for very long. I was driving 70 miles a day to work in a Jeep Wrangler. At $10 an hour and $3.50 a gallon, that wasn’t very feasible.

I stumbled into the real estate world as an ISA. Inside Sales Agent. I was basically a real estate telemarketer. I was expected to make 100 calls a day and set at least 2 appointments a day. I failed miserably at that job. I felt like I was chained to that desk and that crushed my spirit. I ended up working in the property management side of the same business for several months before I decided that I should get my real estate license and sell houses.

I can say that it was the best thing that I’ve done for myself. My confidence has soared and I’m pretty good at it. I love meeting and talking to new people. I love the fact that I’m helping people. Whether it’s selling a house or helping people find the house they love, I think this is my niche. I can see myself doing this happily for many years. And on a different note, I’ve found someone to love that loves me too. More on that in the next post. Stay tuned….

~ V

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
Vivian Greene