Reinvention time

Thirteen years ago, I went to a fashion party. I didn’t realize it then, but it would lead to a reinvention of my career—not to mention a couple of beautiful outfits. It was there I randomly met someone who would change the course of my life. 

The party was like the group dressing rooms in the beloved Loehmanns of days gone by: None of us were shy. We all disrobed and started trying on the clothes. I was standing in my underwear making cracks about, well, my underwear, when the delightful woman across from me said: “You know, you’re really funny.” And then she said those fateful words: “I’m going to tell my husband he should call you.” Which I thought was really weird since I was standing in my underwear. 

But her husband did call me. Mark Liu, Editor of a new magazine in town, Rochester Magazine. He asked me to send him some of my writing. But I had no idea what to send.

The Supreme Court brief I helped to write was significant but not exactly magazine material. Perhaps some of the columns I’d written about parenting for the pre-school newsletter? Or would the columns I’d written about employment law for a law journal work? 

My husband said, “Um, why don’t you send him the play you’ve written?”

And that’s how the Suburban Outlaw was born. My one woman show, co-authored and performed in Washington, D.C., titled Pumping Josey: Life and Death in Suburbia, became the jumping-off point for a column that was all about life in a suburban cornfield. 

When I told my husband I was going to write a column for a magazine, he said, “Wait. What? You never said you wanted to be a writer before.” Another friend actually said, “What are you going to write about?” Yet another friend said, “Wait, that’s my column.” Apparently she’d always dreamed of writing a column. But how could it be hers when it wasn’t even mine yet? (Of course she still doesn’t write a column, and she’s no longer my friend). 

But then, I still had to write the thing. Mark and I charted out a mission for the column to share musings from my life in the cornfield, focusing on storytelling of life lessons and making a difference. Which led to the definition of suburban outlaws: irreverent women (or men) who live their lives fully for their families and themselves. They have a drive and an energy to do something, anything, to make a difference. They like to make new rules and most important, they have what I came to call an EDGE: They Explore, Dream, Grow and Excite.

In 2011, the column was expanded to the newspaper, where I continue to write bi-weekly on topical topics beyond my husband’s fashion choices or my empty nest. (Nearly 500 columns, 300,000 words, and he still dresses like a 50-something frat-farm-boy.) 

I had reinvented my career, all because I went to a party at a friend’s house and bought some clothes. But that’s the thing about reinvention. Sometimes it’s not about the intention but about the opportunity taken.

I suspect that’s true of most career reinventions. For the most part, mine weren’t planned. They just happened, and mostly they followed the loss of one thing and the need for another. The old axiom turns out to be true: when one door closes, another one opens. 

I became an actor because my law firm went of business. I wrote a play after I lost a dear friend and had to pump breastmilk on the way to her funeral and then later shared the story with another friend who was a playwright. My column was born of leaving a place I lived in for 17 years. Even my consulting career began because of a little thing called a recession in 2008 caused me to consider going back to practice law.

But what no one tells you is that reinventions aren’t easy. That door that opens on the other side sometimes needs to be kicked in.

The night my law firm went out of business, I literally howled at the ceiling as I clutched a leather briefcase in one hand and a stapler from the firm in another (I figured they wouldn’t need it). 

My friend’s death set me into a deep depression as I confronted the randomness of life. 

The column came along when I was new in town and had no friends (great way to meet people – interview them!). And that little recession was a financial kick-in-the-pants that happened to a whole nation. 

But as I look back, I realize all my reinventions allowed me to use my core skills and passions, just in different environments. There’s a definite through line connecting the written and spoken word, how we show up and act and—my personal favorite—storytelling. 

That’s the thing people sometimes forget about reinvention: It’s not a whole new invention. The emphasis is on the “re.” Reinvention is, I believe, less about what you end up doing and more committing to the process and learning to let go of who you thought you were or what you thought you were supposed to be doing. 

While my incarnations were the result of circumstances, hindsight shows me there was a process of change and growth in all of them. 

Becoming an actor gave me the freedom to let go of a typical workday to develop a freelance work ethic (and, gratefully, I also got to let go of the stockings and high heels). Every time I was out in the middle of the day, going to an audition instead of going to an office for work, I would wonder, “Who are all these people out in the middle of the day?” I know now. 

Moving to Rochester released me from burdens on my time caused by big city traffic and people from the past who were holding me back. Because I knew no one, I could change my own perception of myself and even identify more quickly the new friends who might prove toxic, resulting in my life mantra, “Lose the psychos.” 

And when I decided to take on the new opportunity of writing a regular column, I learned new skills and disciplines like meeting deadlines and accuracy (I’d add “good punctuation” but I think my editor would spit out coffee on his computer).

Every reinvention was scary and emotionally difficult, but each one also made me grateful for opportunities to jump in feet-first, eyes-closed, and see what happens when you need to morph into a new version of yourself. 

Ultimately, my reinventions have allowed me to be more authentic as I’ve entered different phases of life. They have energized me in the moment and helped me to be optimistic about every opportunity to grow and change in the future after a loss.

Even the loss of this magazine.

So while this magazine won’t be published any longer, the Suburban Outlaw will stick around forever because this is more than a column. It is who I am. I was lucky enough to define what I wanted to be and then write stories from my own life and other lives that fit that definition. My wish for you my readers is that you have the opportunity to constantly reinvent yourself into becoming the story you most want to tell.

Cheers to all who have made this publication what it has always been, a beautiful celebration of all things Rochester. Especially to my editor, who guided me and helped shape my stories—and taught me where commas go.

I’m not riding off into the sunset…but to the EDGE: to explore, dream, grow and excite.