Then and Now by Betsy Ashton

Not long ago, I posted a #ThrowbackThursday picture on Facebook and Twitter of me in 1975. In a bikini. The fact that I was a size six and had dark hair wasn't the reason I posted it. It was the look on my face of wondering what the future held. True, I was already in my, well, not teens, but I had plans for my future. Looking back, some came true, some were unrealistic, and some were just not worth pursuing.

I vowed long before the picture was taken that I would survive whatever life threw at me. I'd already survived a lot, but I had more to go.

I vowed I would always have what my mother called "walkin' money." She taught me at a very early age to have money in my handbag or pocket for a phone call or a taxi. Why? Because I might not always end up where I wanted to be. If I could make a couple of calls, I'd have a strong chance of surviving. (Note to the younger readers: This was before we all had cell phone, before 911. We had pay phone. Everywhere.)

My mother also meant having enough money to leave a bad situation permanently if need be. Years later, Oprah would call it her "bag lady" money. Enough to start over if necessary. (See the discussion on "bag lady money" in Mad Max Unintended Consequences. Thanks, Mom and Oprah.)

By the time my then-boyfriend took this picture, I had finished college, collected four degrees, and had a good job in industry. I also had a savings account for that all-important "walkin' money." Over the years, I lost two jobs, one through downsizing, one because I was the wrong person for it. Each time, I dedicated myself to two things: finding another job and writing books.

I had no idea at the time of the bikini pic that I'd one day become a writer, but maybe that's part of the looking into the future and being excited about what was to come. I started writing really bad

prose, but writing nonetheless, after my downsizing. That romance sits in cyberdust. Perhaps I'll look at it and determine if it's too bad to be rewritten. After I was fired, I wrote a three-book saga of a group of women. at 350,000 words (in six months), honesty says overwrote the saga. Again, maybe I blow off the cyberdust...

Anyway, between the bikini and now, I achieved a goal I hadn't foreseen. It was all a matter of numbers. One agent + one publisher = two books in a series in print. Giggle.

I didn't foreseen where I was going, but I'm glad I'm here.

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Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max, Unintended Consequences, and Uncharted Territory, A Mad Max Mystery, which is now available in e-book at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

My Favorite Years by Alison Henderson

Life is sprinkled with watershed events, sometimes watershed years, when everything changes. Being an eternal optimist, I choose to remember and celebrate the years when life took a turn for the better. Bad times I banish to the rubbish heap in the back of my mind as quickly as possible.

One such "favorite" year began when I turned twenty-one in early October of my senior year at Vassar. It was a perfect day in the Hudson River Valley, crisp and bright with brilliant blue skies and glowing fall foliage. My roommate (and lifelong best friend) and her now-husband took me on a picnic on the grounds of the Vanderbilt Mansion, high on the bluffs overlooking the river in Hyde Park. I don't remember what we ate, but I'll never forget the overwhelming sense of well-being I felt in such beautiful surroundings with such close friends. Later that spring, I graduated, got my first job, married my high school sweetheart, and bought a home. It was a year brimming with promises of good things to come. That marriage ended amicably a few years later when we both grew up but in no way dimmed the pleasure of those memories.

Another important year for me was the year I turned forty. Many women may regard forty with dread, but for me it was an age of self-discovery and actualization. Eight years earlier, I had quit my job to stay home with my daughter when she was born. During that time, OG suffered numerous career ups and downs, ranging from sadistic supervisors to employers leaving town, but he persevered in order to give me those important years with my child. By the time I turned forty, he was too beaten down to do it any more, so we switched roles. I went back to work and became the sole provider until I retired. Instead of feeling resentful, I felt empowered. My relationship with my daughter had a rock-solid foundation, and I was proud to be able to give our family financial and emotional stability after a rocky few years.

Because I am such an optimist, my favorite years don't stop there. I still hope for a few yet to come. Perhaps my daughter will marry. Perhaps I'll become a grandmother some day. Perhaps the next book I write will be The One. The future is rife with possibilities, and for that I'm grateful every day. 

Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com
http://alisonhenderson.blogspot.com