A lot of wonderful things have started to happen since I left my false identity and ripped off my disguise (mild-mannered secretary). To begin with, I write every single day. I feel like that song, “If I had a hammer.” I write in the morning, I write on line at the grocery store, I write on my blackberry and email it to myself so I can write some more at home.
I have thrown away my purple fringed business suit (no kidding) and 2-inch pumps, and one-word-at-a-time, I am making a super-hero outfit with a thousand pockets for stories and an endless supply of bullet-proof ink.
This is not the only dream to come true for me since leaving behind a few nightmares and villains; if everything goes okay, I will begin the process of finishing my degree in September. (I have a 4.0 and never finished.) I’m not bragging here, if you know me at all, that’s just not my nature – but I am reminding myself that I was good at school and I loved it. Two great reasons to go back and finish.
A few other dreams? Well, probably the biggest dream is that I am fully participatory in my own life. To be honest, working in the city was killing me long before someone stuck a knife in my back. I was gone at 6am and got back at 8pm if I was lucky. I would call my eight-year-old to say, “Have a good day,” and pray to get home in time to tuck her into bed. I missed every single cupcake birthday she ever had at school. Other things suffered as well. Since I was only home on weekends, they became my religion. It was me and my daughter time, which left nothing for friends or anything else. So there was a lot of lemonade in the lemons life handed me when I left my career.
And over the course of a few months, I have definitely landed on the other side of ”there.” Now I still don’t have words to explain what “there” is, but I do know that the childlike pitch to my voice is gone. Maybe you know women like me – forty-year-olds with the ingénue of a little girl. It’s charming, but underneath, without a doubt, that woman is terrified. I know because I lived it. Most of all, I was afraid that you might not like me. I know that sounds crazy at my age, but it is the truth. I had learned to charm and cajole and be kind and smart and do anything I could to be absolutely sure you would like me. Even … if I did NOT like you.
There is no explaining the process of letting that particular disguise go. But week after week, assignment after assignment, it is definitely gone. Sometimes it takes a minute; I still make every effort to be warm and gracious. But after a while, I remember to stop and listen; to use my late-blooming discernment and stand back and decide if I want to use my energy on this particular situation. And if not, I charmingly fade into the crowd and take the nicest, funniest, sexiest, most charming woman in the room with me.
If you have any questions, you can definitely reach out to me, but you may have to come to Monroe and find my sweet gorgeous ass sliding across Mombasha Lake in that magical canoe.
Love always,
Mary Agnes Antonopoulos (Mary Vetell)
Freelance Writer and Spectacular, Uncommon Woman
I have thrown away my purple fringed business suit (no kidding) and 2-inch pumps, and one-word-at-a-time, I am making a super-hero outfit with a thousand pockets for stories and an endless supply of bullet-proof ink.
This is not the only dream to come true for me since leaving behind a few nightmares and villains; if everything goes okay, I will begin the process of finishing my degree in September. (I have a 4.0 and never finished.) I’m not bragging here, if you know me at all, that’s just not my nature – but I am reminding myself that I was good at school and I loved it. Two great reasons to go back and finish.
A few other dreams? Well, probably the biggest dream is that I am fully participatory in my own life. To be honest, working in the city was killing me long before someone stuck a knife in my back. I was gone at 6am and got back at 8pm if I was lucky. I would call my eight-year-old to say, “Have a good day,” and pray to get home in time to tuck her into bed. I missed every single cupcake birthday she ever had at school. Other things suffered as well. Since I was only home on weekends, they became my religion. It was me and my daughter time, which left nothing for friends or anything else. So there was a lot of lemonade in the lemons life handed me when I left my career.
And over the course of a few months, I have definitely landed on the other side of ”there.” Now I still don’t have words to explain what “there” is, but I do know that the childlike pitch to my voice is gone. Maybe you know women like me – forty-year-olds with the ingénue of a little girl. It’s charming, but underneath, without a doubt, that woman is terrified. I know because I lived it. Most of all, I was afraid that you might not like me. I know that sounds crazy at my age, but it is the truth. I had learned to charm and cajole and be kind and smart and do anything I could to be absolutely sure you would like me. Even … if I did NOT like you.
There is no explaining the process of letting that particular disguise go. But week after week, assignment after assignment, it is definitely gone. Sometimes it takes a minute; I still make every effort to be warm and gracious. But after a while, I remember to stop and listen; to use my late-blooming discernment and stand back and decide if I want to use my energy on this particular situation. And if not, I charmingly fade into the crowd and take the nicest, funniest, sexiest, most charming woman in the room with me.
If you have any questions, you can definitely reach out to me, but you may have to come to Monroe and find my sweet gorgeous ass sliding across Mombasha Lake in that magical canoe.
Love always,
Mary Agnes Antonopoulos (Mary Vetell)
Freelance Writer and Spectacular, Uncommon Woman
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