Graduating into a New Life

Calling all readers! Thursday, we're featuring Pets on Parade, so please send your pet photos in to JuliaSpencerFleming at Gmail dot com! 

 

 

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: If it’s May, there must be a graduation in the Hugo-Vidal family, right? And you are right, dear readers - we are all gathered in Norfolk, VA to celebrate Veronique’s graduation (and pinning) as a Respiratory Therapist. I am SO proud of her. Veronique worked for several years after getting her BA from the University of Virginia, but like a lot of liberal-arts-educated millennials, she wasn’t seeing much in the way of income or advancement. 

She was always interested in health care, though, and I remember when she first told me her idea about becoming an RT. We were walking on a sandy beach during one of her visits in Maine, and she laid out a whole plan, including how to finance it. I was impressed because unlike the rest of the family (which tends to be disorganized, dramatic and/or too idealistic for our own good) Veronique had analyzed which health care job had the best return on investment. Needless to say, this was not something Ross or I did when deciding to become a full time writer and a special ed teacher, respectively.

It’s been a grueling two years for her - she spent the first summer after getting into the competitive program catching up on biology and chemistry courses she hadn’t taken at UVA. From then it was four semesters and another summer of full-time classes plus practicum: the students were rotated through six different hospitals in the area to experience all the areas where RTs might be called. Keep in mind, this was during the second year of Covid.

Every time I called or Facetimed with Spencer, Veronique would pop in, say, “Hi, mom!” and then vanish back into her home office, where she studied at night. Every. Night. It’s one thing to fling yourself into degree work when you’re a kid; it’s another thing entirely to quit a job and take on grinding degree work at thirty. That, I’ve told her, is the most impressive accomplishment of all: to risk leaving what’s not working and reinventing yourself - in her case, first as a full-time student and now as a skilled medical professional!

Reds, I hope you’ll join me in congratulating Veronique. What’s a time when you took a risk to reinvent yourself?

LUCY BURDETTE: Congratulations to Veronique–what an accomplishment! Our nephew is graduating from a residency program in emergency medicine–so grueling! This is the same program our daughter attended so we know first hand how hard they have to work!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Congratulations to Veronique! Do tell her she has many cheers from all the Reds! It must have taken such courage to reinvent herself, and in such a demanding profession.

I suppose I reinvented myself when (with a history as a chronically bad student and already a couple of years older than my classmates) I enrolled in a hard but wonderful college as a sophomore and earned a degree in biology. Quite a few years later I reinvented myself again when I made up my mind to write a novel. I’ve never regretted either decision and I wish the same for Veronique.

 

RHYS BOWEN: Adding my congratulations for Veronique. Well done! My daughter Anne went through a similar reinventing a few years ago when she decided to leave her job in the advertising industry and become a psycho-therapist. Three very intense years of study and now she’s a qualified therapist working with at-risk children. I’m naturally very proud.

I don’t think I’ve ever re-invented myself. It was always a natural progression from college newspaper to BBC to writing screenplays to books. I guess I must enjoy it!

HALLIE EPHRON: BIG congrats to Veronique! And what a great career path (and job opportunities!) she has ahead of her.

I’ve always been a “keep a foot on the boat and a foot on the dock” kind of risk taker. So when I started writing (aka learning to write) when my youngest went to college and I had a room to write in and time to do it. I worked part time for years getting better, working freelance so I could keep our fiances in good shape and manage the time. Which explains why it took me 10 years to go from thinking I’d like to write to having a book accepted by an agent. For many more years I kept writing freelance on the side. No leaps for me.

JENN McKINLAY: Congratulations, Veronique!!! That is fantastic! And how very smart to make the shift when you did. I made a life change up when I was 25. I moved cross country from CT to AZ to pursue being a writer in a cheaper part of the country where i could actually afford to love working part-time. It took longer than I thought but I think I might have made it finally. Kind of wish I'd thought of being an RT first...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: This is so inspirational! Hurray, Veronique! Brilliant. Oh, gosh, I feel as if I reinvent every day. But I guess it was in 1970. With absolutely no plans or career path, I thought--okay, all I want to do it change the world. How can I do that? Maybe I'll be a reporter. And naive me marched in the biggest station in Indianapolis, with zero experience, and somehow got a job as a radio reporter. I always think: I took a HUGE chance--and so did he radio station, right?--and somehow I found my calling. I did it for more than 3 decades. And then, I had an idea for a book.

 

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? Have you or someone you know taken the leap into a new life?