Madness Monday

"She must've lost her marbles!"

"She went termporarily insane!"

"The girl never was right in the head!"

"She never did know which end was up!"

"Her poor Mama tried!"

Yep, I have heard it all!

In 1975 I got married at the tender age of 16, much to my parent's dismay. I was a sophomore in high school, and he'd been out of school for a little over a year. He worked in a lumber mill as a sawyer.

Well, I finished high school, and even waited four years before having my first child. Then I didn't stop at one. I had five. In five years!

I got my first degree in 1983 when the 4th child was a newborn. In journalism.

In 1988 I went on to get my second, and became a geriatric nurse practitioner.

In 1990 I divorced my husband after 15 years. [Up until then, only telling one person how abusive it was. I hid it all that time.]

I went on to get an advanced degree. Raised my children on my own, while their father went his separate way and didn't pay a penny of the child support he was ordered to pay.

And then in 2001, three years after remarrying, this time to RIGHT man, I totally switched careers. Again!

I picked up genealogy as a hobby. It morphed slowly into a business, which I went public with in 2006. And my hobby became my full-time career.

I have family members who will forever think I am crazy for changing from my stable career as the caretaker of the elderly, to the "unstable" career of the caretaker of the family history.

My parents, while they say they are proud of my new career, never fail to have the final say in a conversation with, "You know, she had it made as an R.N.! Could've worked for any hospital in the world! But, nope, you see what she's doing now!"

Well, maybe I am crazy. But if so... let me leave this world in my happy state of "madness", doing that which I love most!

Perhaps I am the keeper of the family history. And of finding the history of other families. And if so, then I am quite content to be in this state of "madness"!

I for one, feel blessed to be able to do that which I love most. Dare I say it? I sincerely doubt that those who mock me are even one-quarter as content in their careers as I am in mine!

And with that, I leave this... my "Madness Monday" post!