"Reinvention" is the theme for Generation Fabulous's blog hop this month.
Considering I just started a new career as a realtor, seemingly out of the blue, "reinvention" is right up my alley.
Or is it? Can it be considered "reinvention" if it's something you once loved, and spent hours doing, long ago?
You see, when I was little, my favorite section of the Sunday newspaper wasn't the comics - it was the Homes section.
I loved looking at the homes featured on the front page. I would study the floorplans of the huge houses on the back page, imagining myself wandering through them.
I was ten the first time Daddy and I toured the Bishop's Palace in Galveston, triggering my love for snooping through houses which carried on into my teen years, when my boyfriend and I knocked on the door of a house I loved and asked for a tour..
...and then into my twenties when Tom and I and two friends knocked on the door of a renovated old house in LaMarque and asked for a tour, and Tom and I and two friends explored a condemned Victorian house in Galveston, and Tom and I pushed babies in strollers through old homes' tours in LaPorte, and explored new construction in every town we've lived in...
I began designing floorplans when I was ten. My mother would bring home special paper from her job as a secretary at a construction company. I came up with some pretty good plans!
Television houses have always triggered my imagination. Back then I tried figuring out the floor plans of the houses on "Bewitched" and "The Brady Bunch" and "Dark Shadows", and even taped pages of typing paper together into large sheets so I could sketch out the floor plan of the Munsters' and Addams Family's mansions.
I thought I wanted to be an architect...but the idea of having to include the plumbing and wiring and placement of supporting beams in a structure bored me to tears.
I just liked the parts of houses you could see. And secret passageways.
But I'm not sure I'd ever heard of real estate agents back then. However, considering my obsession with houses and the list I made when I was ten of every single person I had ever met (my first "contacts" list!), it's obvious that (besides being a strange child) I would eventually grow up to be a Realtor, touring properties and reminding everyone I know that I can help them buy, sell, lease, or invest in it.
(There are also conventions!)
Why that didn't become obvious to me until I was 54 is a mystery, but I'm sure the journey to this place wasn't wasted, but was, instead, an invaluable trek to self-awareness.
Perhaps the midlife "reinvention" we talk about so often now is more about getting back in touch with who, or what, you really are and what you enjoy than becoming something altogether new.
What do you think?
Have you experienced "reinvention"...or are you longing to? Share your story in the comments, and read the other GenFabbers' posts to hear more. If you're a blogger, join the blog hop!
(By the way, who do you know that needs to buy, sell, lease, or invest property...anywhere in the world? Contact me!)
