This week we’re talking about the events that shaped our lives.
In one of the reviews for The Marquesa’s Necklace, a reader wrote ” the narrator mainly had too many situations.” Well, if I ever wrote out my life story, I’m sure an editor would take a red pain to it and claim I had too many “situations”, that all those coincidences couldn’t possibly be real.
Let me tell you about the incredible string of situations that led me to meeting my beloved husband.
I had a plan for my life after I graduated from high school, all so many years ago. I happily went off to college, my major decided and the perfect school chosen. I was going to be a librarian. But after one semester, (that’s four months) I changed my mind. I was in the wrong school for my vision for my future.
I decided to take some time away from college and reevaluate my goals. I returned home, got a job, and avoided thinking about what else I wanted to do. But my mother, in her wisdom, didn’t let me off the hook for too long. She encouraged me to come to a decision about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
So I did, with the help of a book listing colleges and universities in the United States. I’d already figured out a mew course of study, forestry, all I needed was the school to go to. And I found it. A little community college in the northwestern corner of Wyoming, near Yellowstone. Inspired by the music of John Denver, I applied and was accepted. (Hey, it wasn’t Colorado, but it was close! Still Rocky Mountain High!) When August rolled around, I piled all my clothes and a few other belongings into a small trunk and a backpack and got a ride on a cross-country Greyhound bus. Yes, I took a 1500 mile bus trip without ever having seen my destination. Remember, this was pre-internet, so I couldn’t even research what the area looked like.
Where does my future husband come into this? Hold on, there’s more in this string of incidents.
So I get settled into my dorm, and start classes, and everything is marvelous. One of my next-door neighbors is a local girl, who lived about 30 miles away in a small town. She decided to live in the dorm instead of dealing with driving daily and fighting the winter snows. Her boyfriend would come to visit her on a regular basis. Once day he brought along a friend, who fell for the next-door-neighbor’s roommate.
Confused yet? The next night, the boyfriend’s friend wanted to come back but his car was in need of repairs, so he asked yet another friend to bring him to the school. That friend agreed. The friend’s friend and I met, and the rest is history. What editor is going to allow that chain of coincidences into a book?
That’s just one of the many events in my life that has shaped me to be who I am. Let’s find out what stories the other authors have to tell.
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Perhaps our destinies are already mapped out for us – who knows? Great post by the way!