When you were 30

This article triggered an idea for this blog. Because of my age (I'm a card-carrying wrinkly) instead of a decade ago, I am answering about where I was at the age of 30.

https://www.thelily.com/we-asked-highly-accomplished-women-what-their-lives-were-like-a-decade-ago-their-answers-might-surprise-you/?utm_campaign=wp_the_optimist&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_optimist

I wonder what other women at 30 thirty. What way your life at?

Q: Where were you living and what were you doing for work?

A: I was living in Waltham, MA and working in marketing for the National Fire Protection Association. I had a wonderful mentor in Walter Masson, who was my professional father and a role model for working ethically.

Q: What were you struggling with?

A: I was a single-mom, money was tight. It helped to have a roommate, not just financially but in terms of friendship, finding things to laugh about, someone my daughter could love too. The sharing of ideas and activities put the struggles into a manageable form. I also had major problems with my mother and I wasn't ready to resolve them out of pure cowardice. I was still feeling the after effects of a painful divorce, although that was improving.

Q: What was the best part of your day?

A: My days were usually happy although there was too much to get done in too little time. Time with my daughter was a joy MOST days. We, my housemate and I, seemed to have the ability to make the simple things fun.

Q: What were you hoping to accomplish?

A: I knew I wanted to be a writer (fiction not public relations or marketing) but I didn't sit down and write until my roommate, tired of hearing me say "I want to be a writer," asked "What's stopping you?" The answer was me--I was stopping me. Still it took me a little while longer to develop the discipline to sit down and write each day. The question of what's stopping you works for other things too.

Q: What were you afraid of?

A: Poverty, not ever living in Europe, not writing, and of not getting the most out of life, of having work that I hated.

Note: I have since fulfilled my dream of living in Europe and writing www.donnalanenelson.com. My greatest lesson--people are the most important part of my life.