👋 I Almost Had That Life Instead
It's Monday. I'm here for you.
Hi, Friend! It’s me, Jen Glantz.
The last time I was at the Tampa airport I was flying in for a job interview at the Home Shopping Network.
I was 22. A year out of college. Weeks done with my first real job working for a sorority as a traveling consultant (That’s a whole other story!!). Sleeping on dorm room floors. Pointing my index finger at hazing. Thumbs down for trying not to act like a college student.
When the job was over, I was living back in my parent’s house. Applying for 50 jobs a day. Any job that let you auto-upload your resume without changing the details was a job for me! Because I didn’t care.
I was willing to be anything except the person I currently was. My new job was working for a local magazine. They hired me to write, I lied to myself. Instead, I did personal errands for the couple who ran it and their two little dogs who pooped everywhere but outside. Guess who had to clean up after them? Hi, it’s me.
Somehow in one of my late night resume sends, the Home Shopping Network decided that I was a good fit for one of their jobs. Why? I remember thinking when I got an email that they wanted to fly me to Tampa for an in-person interview.
My resume read like this:
Graduated from University of Central Florida.
Degree in creative writing.
Degree in journalism.
Jobs: Working for a sorority??
Objective: I do not yet have one and I fear I never will.
The opportunity of a lifetime? At the time, yes it was. It was the only opportunity I had. Tampa? I knew nothing about it. How exciting. How scary. Give me the thrill to have a life somewhere. I’ll take it. I won’t look back.
The job was to be a copywriter. Spend the day writing descriptions of all the products they were going to sell on the shows. It sounded boring but glitzy. I wanted to be a writer and when you really want to be a writer you learn early on the jobs that pay are usually the ones that are so grim you want to pull your hair out as you think of a way to excitingly describe weed killer.
I’m back at the Tampa airport for the first time since then. It’s been 14 years. I’ve lived an entire teenage of a life! I’ve had dozens of jobs since then. Been fired twice. Laid off once. Made a lot of money. Lost a lot of it too. Moved all over the country. Met Adam. Then Goofy. Finally Gemma.
The airport smells musty. I bet nothing about it has changed in 14 years. But I’m here now and I have. Hello? Can anyone see me? People! Look closely, will you? I am back, but different.
I have so much to prove.
******
The first thing they did on the job interview was give me a tour of the place. On a golf cart, they showed me to the studios where they filmed the hosts pushing products live to all of America watching over their TV screens.
I was too bubble-headed about life at the time to notice or know that years later, I wouldn’t want to be the one writing the scripts for these people to read, I would want to be the one who read them.
When it was time for my interview, they sat me at a desk, put a timer on, and asked me to write a bunch of copy for sheets, scarves, garden hoses, those kinds of things. My mind was spinning.
How did I get here? Do we end up places that aren’t right for us when we don’t have a clue where we want to end up?
When the buzzer went off, I completed 75% of my writing test. I’m a fast writer but not when my mind drifts into the mushy spot of anxiety.
I got back on the plane and didn’t need to wait the 3-weeks to know. When my parents asked how it went I said: funny being in a place like that. But I don’t think I’ll ever go back.
******
I’m back in Tampa for the first stop of my book tour. I want to linger in the airport and prop my feet up and daydream what my life would be like instead if I had moved to Tampa at 22.
Who would I have fallen in love with or what if I never did at all?
Would I still be writing copy about products I never knew about? Would I have ever found out, through the tail-end of my twenties that I need the space to run free but only if I have a home filled with love to run back to? Would I have found the people I call my soul-mate best friends? Would my daughter be Gemma?
They are calling for my flight to take off. I am flying back to New York City, the place that gave me a job three months after Tampa didn’t. I didn’t know I wanted to move to New York City. I would have gone anywhere that would have had me. How dangerous to be so open like that.
It’s normal to wonder and sometimes I do. I let the what ifs go so far that all of a sudden I’m living in St. Louis with three kids in a two story house and I’m teaching creative writing at the local college and life is fine, okay even, because it’s all I know, and it’s all that knows me.
I would have lived a good version of my life here in Tampa, anywhere, I’d like to think.
Before I board my flight, I wish this city well. It’s not mine. It almost was. But it isn’t. It’s whoever got that copywriting job. It’s a lot of other peoples. And so I have to go back to my life, the one I wouldn’t have had if I got that opportunity of a lifetime in Tampa so many year ago.
Funny how life works out so well for us, especially when things we want so badly don’t.
Take care of yourself this week (ilysm),
The weirdest feeling as a reader is when you finish a book and you genuinely miss the character and mourn the fact that you won’t be spending your days with them anymore. I spent 15!!! hours listening to this audiobook last weekend and when it was over I was totally jolted over the fact that these people were gone from my life and the story was over. It was such a mesmerizing book.
I’m a little late on this trend but all the cool Brooklyn girls have been wearing these sneakers for a while. I got them last week and have worn them every day since. They look soooo cool with jeans/leggings/etc. and are super comfy. No notes!
Two products I love that I just reordered: these makeup wipes and this body wash.
Loving her music. Listening on repeat all day!
Thank you for reading this week’s pick-me-up. I adore you! I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. Until then, hit reply and say helllloooo!
If you want to follow me on @jenglantz, I’d love it. And if you have anything to share or ask, hit reply or comment below.
P.S. I’d be so grateful if you could tap that like button below - it really helps others discover this content! Your support means the world to me! Thank you for being here!
And also, tell me everything:
This line!! Love it so much. "Funny how life works out so well for us, especially when things we want so badly don’t."