November 16, 1969

Not to cast aspersions on any of my high school friends who read this, but in retrospect I think Luke was wrong. While it’s possible most of Santa Clara was more together (mentally) than me, I don’t believe the bulk of my contemporaries charged toward their destiny without a missed step. Luke and I made the mistake of comparing how polished my friends looked on the outside to how messed up I felt on the inside.

In truth, teen-agers navigating the tail end of the sixties had plenty of reason to be confused about the world and their place in it.   From the vantage of almost fifty years worth of hindsight, many of my peers explored multiple paths before finding their purpose. Sandy Walker briefly aspired to be a dental hygienist. (Not to disparage dental hygienists, but it wasn’t Sandy’s thing and she lasted a month.)  At her next gig – receptionist for the Whirlpool Company – she made it all the way to two. Today, she teaches fitness classes part-time (Yoga and Pilates mostly) for a Modesto health club. Tal Pomeroy traveled the country, butchered meat and sold encyclopedias before he became Tal Pomeroy, MD.  Against all odds, my art major college boyfriend Luke became an accountant – I didn’t see that coming.

If you, too, travelled bizarre career paths before you found yourself where you belong,  feel free to comment here or on my domain. I’m endlessly intrigued by the strange trajectories of our lives.