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Authors: Alexandra Penney
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hugged and kissed him good night and in a few minutes he fell asleep, a true angel with his fine hair golden from the light in the hallway.
My new gig would give me much more time to be with him. With two emotionally distant parents, I was often on my own as a child. I didnât want my sonâs childhood to be that way. Thereâd be no more packing of Paris-bound Vuittons deep into the night. No more nightmares about Viennese Viper art directors. The chichi life of Condé Nast had become too rich for my blood. The endless business lunches, the manynights spent at charity or industry dinners instead of with my family, had become meaningless. I began to see my closetful of designer clothes as reflecting the superficiality of the fashionable world that I inhabited by day. I couldnât care less if I never ate another baked potato with shaved white trufflesâa favorite of mine at the Four Seasons restaurant, where I had been allotted my own table. I wrote down a list of reasons why I was leaving:
Your children are only young once.
Live the life you want to live, not the one youâre supposed to live.
Follow your big dreams while you are able to do so.
New experiences are what make life interesting.
Listen to your heart as well as your head.
Try something unexpected and adventurousâyou can always go back to what you did before.
I went to my bookshelf and took out a worn green cloth-covered college edition of Thoreau and added this quotation to my list:
âIf one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.â
After dinner that night, over decaf espresso, I told my husband about my new job. To his enormous credit, he didnât flinch. Perhaps he thought I was a bit tetched in the head, and he didnât have time to realize that I would go from a cushy editorial job to fishmongering, but I was his sonâs mother and that was really what counted. I told him my plans and that I was sure I could supplement my salary by doing some freelance writing, since Iâd made a lot of contacts at Glamour . I also said that if he thought this was a really stupid idea, all I had to do was tell Rosedale Robbie that I had changed my mind.
âNo,â he said, âI think I understand where youâre headed.â
I was so grateful for his support that tears came to my eyes.
The next day I told Glamour âs editor in chief that I was quitting to go back to school and to freelance. She sent out an afternoon memo to the staff: âAP is leaving for her own interesting reasons but I am sure sheâll be back.â Those werenât the exact words but theyâre pretty close.
Was I crazy to leave a high-paying, prestigious editorial job for a fish market? I donât think so. I knew that the longer I stayed at Glamour , the more unlikely it was that I would become an artist. Now that I look back and remember the big chance I took in my twenties, becoming a fishmonger in order to pursue my dreams, I think surely I can find a way out of the mess Iâm in now.
CHAPTER 8
The Copy Shop Collapse
MF + 4 WEEKS
I tâs been four weeks since the Madoff bomb detonated into my life. Iâm back in New York. The Florida house is still for sale. The cottage on Long Island is also on the market. No takers, or even lookers, for either house.
Iâve now written three blogs. Ed Victor, my agent, thinks he might be able to sell a book based on them. Despite childhood ambitions, Iâve never considered myself a writer or an author. Iâve written books as a working journalist, and I know that my strength is ideas, not sentences. My idea is to write about what happens when oneâs worst nightmare comes true.
On a Monday, I hear the judge has once again given the MF a get-out-of-jail-free card, and I canât stand it. I wasbrought up believing in the American
My new gig would give me much more time to be with him. With two emotionally distant parents, I was often on my own as a child. I didnât want my sonâs childhood to be that way. Thereâd be no more packing of Paris-bound Vuittons deep into the night. No more nightmares about Viennese Viper art directors. The chichi life of Condé Nast had become too rich for my blood. The endless business lunches, the manynights spent at charity or industry dinners instead of with my family, had become meaningless. I began to see my closetful of designer clothes as reflecting the superficiality of the fashionable world that I inhabited by day. I couldnât care less if I never ate another baked potato with shaved white trufflesâa favorite of mine at the Four Seasons restaurant, where I had been allotted my own table. I wrote down a list of reasons why I was leaving:
Your children are only young once.
Live the life you want to live, not the one youâre supposed to live.
Follow your big dreams while you are able to do so.
New experiences are what make life interesting.
Listen to your heart as well as your head.
Try something unexpected and adventurousâyou can always go back to what you did before.
I went to my bookshelf and took out a worn green cloth-covered college edition of Thoreau and added this quotation to my list:
âIf one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.â
After dinner that night, over decaf espresso, I told my husband about my new job. To his enormous credit, he didnât flinch. Perhaps he thought I was a bit tetched in the head, and he didnât have time to realize that I would go from a cushy editorial job to fishmongering, but I was his sonâs mother and that was really what counted. I told him my plans and that I was sure I could supplement my salary by doing some freelance writing, since Iâd made a lot of contacts at Glamour . I also said that if he thought this was a really stupid idea, all I had to do was tell Rosedale Robbie that I had changed my mind.
âNo,â he said, âI think I understand where youâre headed.â
I was so grateful for his support that tears came to my eyes.
The next day I told Glamour âs editor in chief that I was quitting to go back to school and to freelance. She sent out an afternoon memo to the staff: âAP is leaving for her own interesting reasons but I am sure sheâll be back.â Those werenât the exact words but theyâre pretty close.
Was I crazy to leave a high-paying, prestigious editorial job for a fish market? I donât think so. I knew that the longer I stayed at Glamour , the more unlikely it was that I would become an artist. Now that I look back and remember the big chance I took in my twenties, becoming a fishmonger in order to pursue my dreams, I think surely I can find a way out of the mess Iâm in now.
CHAPTER 8
The Copy Shop Collapse
MF + 4 WEEKS
I tâs been four weeks since the Madoff bomb detonated into my life. Iâm back in New York. The Florida house is still for sale. The cottage on Long Island is also on the market. No takers, or even lookers, for either house.
Iâve now written three blogs. Ed Victor, my agent, thinks he might be able to sell a book based on them. Despite childhood ambitions, Iâve never considered myself a writer or an author. Iâve written books as a working journalist, and I know that my strength is ideas, not sentences. My idea is to write about what happens when oneâs worst nightmare comes true.
On a Monday, I hear the judge has once again given the MF a get-out-of-jail-free card, and I canât stand it. I wasbrought up believing in the American
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