Not bad for 44

Christmas was nice, New Year's Day was uneventful, my birthday was... well it was there, wasn't it? The best part was getting birthday hugs from my kids and buying myself a Nora Roberts' novel I wanted and the movie "The First Wives Club." Except when I watched the movie, I realized their ages were supposed to be around 46! I just turned 44. It is not possible that those women are my age.

I realized recently, in all my agonizing, mid-life self-examination, that I am the Forrest Gump of jobs. It's true. Following is the list of jobs I have held, to my best recollection, in the order I held them:

1. Jack-in-the-Box cashier
2. Telephone solicitor for home improvement company
3. Kinney's Shoe Store salesperson
4. Stay-at-home-mom
5. Video store clerk, then manager
6. Chiropractic assistant
7. Perfume salesperson
8. Administrative assistant for business management firm
9. Receptionist for labor law firm
10. Secretary/receptionist/adm. assistant for temp company
11. Adm. assistant/office manager for Japanese trading company
12. Bally's health club salesperson/trainer
13. Clinique counter manager
14. Stay at home mom again
15. Minister
16. Newspaper reporter
17. Radio announcer/news reporter/commercial writer/adm. assistant
18. Magazine writer
19. Magazine ad salesperson
20. Magazine publisher/editor
21. Walgreen's beauty adviser
22. Marketing director for a nursing home
23. Substitute teacher

Each job was a universe all its own with its own peculiar inhabitants. A cast of characters who became familiar to me, important to me. People I thought would always be in my life. Some still are, most aren't.

If variety is the spice of life, then I'm cayenne pepper.