Note: Edited on August 20, 2021, in order to clarify some points that I did not communicate clearly in the first publication, which caused some hurt feelings with some former coworkers. That was never my intent because I care for those people very much and would never intentionally hurt anyone. People who know me well know my heart.

Growing up, I knew that my parents were careful with their money. They worked hard for what they had, and when each of them faced a job loss, they took it in stride and found something else to support our family. It’s what good parents do—they provide for their children. It’s what adults do. When one job doesn’t work out, we have to find another. So what’s the difference between a job and a career? I think it’s the love of a job that makes it a career.

I went through the typical childhood dreams of being unsure what I wanted to be when I grew up. Eventually, I settled on writing as an art form. It’s always the expression of myself from which I couldn’t stay away for too long. Sure, I took breaks over the years from the more creative aspects, but the writing was always there, waiting inside me out of loyalty, talent, and true passion for it.

Getting a real grown-up job was something I fell into while working on my master’s degree in college student personnel at Arkansas Tech University. While completing my bachelor’s in creative writing in early 2003, I learned of the new program starting its first cohort soon. Since I loved working as a senior fellow in the English department at ATU, I knew going to graduate college was the next step because I truly loved being in the college environment. Continue reading