One conversation. Forty-three years later.

I park my car in front of my dad’s house and climb the many stairs to the front door.

It always feels weird coming back here. This had been my family’s home until my dad divorced my mom and moved in with his new family.

Now it’s totally remodeled and overdecorated with lots of ornate things. The huge beveled glass doors are still there, but almost everything else feels new.

I ring the doorbell as I rehearse what I might say to him after all these months.

After their housekeeper lets me in, I go and sit down in the den. A minute or so later, I hear my dad coming down the stairs. When he comes around the corner into the kitchen, I walk over to him. He opens his arms and gives me a big bear hug.

I love Dad’s hugs.

We sit down in the den, and he asks about my second year in college and what I’m studying.

I tell him about my classes and explain that I’ve decided to major in psychology. I love learning how the mind works, and I want to help people like Mom. My goal is to become a psychologist and get my Ph.D.

As I share this with him, his face falls, and he looks distant.

“Shan, I understand why you’d want to major in psychology. I also know it will take a lot of school to get you there. Judy and I, right now, with three kids in college and two little ones, just don’t have the money to help you.”

Sitting here in his renovated house with all these nice things, how does he not have the money?

Then he says, “I strongly urge you to seriously consider changing your major to something that will help you get a job right after school and start supporting yourself.”

Whoa. That feels like a huge slap in the face.

Why can’t I just major in what I want to do with my life?

I put my head in my hands.

“Shan, I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear today,” Dad says. “I’m sorry, and sadly, this is the reality of our situation.”

Then he tells me his dad had given him the same advice when he wanted to become a writer and was dating my mom.

His father told him that if he wanted to make it in this world, he needed a steady, well-paying job that would support his family. That’s why Dad went into medicine, even though he didn’t particularly like it.

So that’s what I need to focus on.

I’m not sure what to say except, “Okay, Dad. I’ll look at the course catalog when I get back to school and see what else I can do.”

Later, as I walk down the many stairs to my car, I’m still trying to take in what just happened. When I get into my car, I put my head in my hands again.

At 19 years old, my dream has just blown up, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do instead.

Over the next 43 years, I built a successful career in publishing, sales, marketing, and corporate communications, eventually starting my own business. I even completed a three-year coach training program, but coaching always stayed alongside my marketing work rather than becoming the work itself.

During all those years, I never connected any of that to the conversation with my dad.

Then a few months ago, while dealing with my mom’s death, I was talking with my therapist about my business slowing down and how almost paralyzed I felt about going out and finding more marketing clients. 

That’s when my therapist said, “You shared a while back about your dad and how he changed the trajectory of what you ended up focusing on in college. Tell me more about that.” 

I started thinking about what he’d said: I needed to change my major so I could get a job after college, support myself, and earn a living.

Then I went one step further.

My worth to my family was only as good as the amount of money I brought in from my work.

To be clear, my dad never said that.

Yet that was the meaning my 19-year-old mind created from his words, and I carried it with me for 43 years.

I didn’t know I had turned that story into a belief.

And honestly, I thought that belief was the truth.

I wonder if something someone said to you years ago became a story you turned into a belief you’re still living by today, even though it may never have been true.

Hands at your back.
Always,
Xox
Shannon

P.S. If this connected with you, I’m here and would love to hear from you. 🙂 Happy Thursday…

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Weekly Photos:

1. I know, I know, another heart-shaped rock in the wild... You know me. I just see them everywhere, even nestled inside many other rocks. It’s like they’re shouting “look at me, Shannon!” So of course, I had to share. 🙂
2. The turkeys are back. Fall is here after all. I just find it so funny and fascinating that I can walk in my neighborhood and come across a wild turkey walking down the street. Yeah, that’s normal, isn’t it? 😉
3. This wasn’t quite the framing photo I was after, and it will have to do for now. I was hiking the trail and a train was crossing the Sacramento River bridge, so I snapped this shot between the trees.
4. An interesting week for finding feathers. This is the fourth one I found. Hmmmm. Well, my favorite thing to do now is take the picture, upload it to AI, and ask it what bird it’s from. It does a pretty sweet job of searching all the feather databases. Google’s Gemini does good work. Its best guess is that this is a Great Blue Heron feather.
5. We had a rainstorm last week, so weird for early September. It never rains in October or November. It made for some fascinating clouds over the river, shaped around Shasta Bally.
6. The deer love this open grassy green space. Every time I walk down this area, they are always munching on the grass. Here’s a mom and her fawn. So many little fawns out now.
7. This past weekend, we had a pretty amazing sunset. A friend invited us over, and her house faces the other side of the mountains from us, and that cloudy sunset didn’t disappoint.

P.S.S. Love Books as I Do? – I’m always reviewing the best nonfiction books – Where Buddha Meets Business.

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