Day 47: My first day at BYU was 30 years ago today. I remember, because it was also my birthday. My 23rd birthday. That makes today my 53rd birthday. Don’t tell anyone.
I don’t mean to sound like Grandma Moses, but where did 30 years go? Seriously! We moved to Provo over the weekend and I started the job, leaving my 8-week-old baby boy in the hands of his daddy. I was totally post-partum-hormonal and I’d just left all of our family behind, including my mom, who patiently talked to me twice a day on the phone, reminding me that I could accomplish hard things. I was so homesick. David and I had no idea how to parent. It was an overload of life-changing events all at once.
Little did I know that I would still be working here 30 years later. It’s a different job, in a different building, and technology has morphed my responsibilities into a very different kind of work, but did I think I’d still be here, within the same five-acre radius of campus?
This 30-year work anniversary and my adventure into the writing world yesterday unfolded some realizations for me. First: As people asked me “So, what do you write?” and I’d answer “Whatever I feel like,” and they’d say “but what genre do you write,” and I’d say “I’m genre neutral” and they’d press with “Oh, so you haven’t written anything yet,” and I’d answer with “I released my first series last year in literary fiction and the one I’m writing now is speculative fiction with urban fantasy undertones,” They’d turn to the next person and whisper “I think I’m genre-neutral,” I realized that when you’re 53, you can set your own standard. I may have even started a trend. <<eye roll>>
The second realization is that even though I’m at the same campus 30 years later, it feels new and fluid and challenging every day. I am not who I was 30 years ago, and neither are you. The world is different, and so are we.
Set your own standard, and when you do, set it high. And when you can reach it, set it higher next time. Because you are not the you who reached it before. The you you’ve become is capable of more. Who knows? You might even start a trend. <<wink wink>> #MomsCompanyTowels #setyourownstandard #genreneutral #writewhatyouwanttowrite #capableofmore
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