(What I really wanted to do was keep working the weekend/holiday job I'd done while I was a student — shop assistant in a family-run patisserie and chocolate shop — while continuing to write book reviews but not relying on my writing as the sole source of income and figure out what to do next in a leisurely way.)


Was there a reason you couldn't do this? Because honestly that sounds like a lovely life!

I feel like my life is nothing but a series of these things. But I would say the biggest one that comes to mind is when I decided to leave my mind-numbing data entry job and move across the country to live with a fandom friend. Jamie was like, "Come live with me!" and...I did! I was only there for not quite three years, but I got my first library job there (which lead to more library jobs, which lead to grad school, which lead to archives, which lead me here), which I definitely would not have been able to get in my hometown.

I think it also taught me I could move on my own, which is something I've done at least four more times since then. I definitely like my life a ton more now than I liked it in my mid-20s before I moved!

I have absolutely no clue what my life would have looked life if I'd stayed in my hometown. No clue at all!