What We're Doing Here: the 2024 Update

Introducing the "I Wonder" series

Telling stories with friends - I’d like this to be my job

Welcome to all you new subscribers and thank you to those who have been with me since I started Good Things Good People back in March 2023. I was learning how to live with Stage IV Lung Cancer and I was pretty clear about where I wanted to go with my writing. I was writing my way through the diagnosis and trying to find the blessings in the mess. If you were around at the beginning, thank you for reading and being a part of this community. It was comforting knowing I had you in my corner.

Now here we are in June of 2024. It’s been almost 3 years since I was first diagnosed with cancer and one year since starting my Substack. Life has certainly changed in 3 years! I’m now retired from working 30+ years in our family business and living in good health (except for the Big C) thanks to science and medicine. I still love to write about “good things and good people” but as I settle in to retirement, midlife, and accepting life with cancer, I find myself wondering. A lot.

I wonder about a lot of things - why are barrel jeans in fashion (never say never but I don’t think I’ll be wearing these), how come I could give up alcohol but I can’t give up coffee, do our homes/houses have a soul, is it hard to be an editor AND a writer? I’m all over the board with my wonderings but I get REALLY curious wondering about women in the world doing the unexpected. The ones who took a traditional or safe route and then somehow found their way to doing the thing they’d wanted to do since as long they could remember. Or maybe it was a career or hobby they didn’t even know they wanted.

These days I sit down each morning with my notebook and coffee, ready to write a story or dig deep into my latest obsession (not barrel jeans) but lately I’ve been distracted. I’m a 56 year old recent retiree feeling like a Senior graduating from high school - the world is my oyster:) It’s exciting and overwhelming.

How will I ever find time to try all the careers and hobbies and experiences that could have been mine or might still be? A magazine editor, a sideline sports analyst, a Pacific Crest Trail hiker, a flower farmer, a chemo nurse, a model, a journalist, a TV host…I wonder what that’s like. Are there careers and hobbies I’ve never heard or dreamt of? How do I create my future exactly how I’d like it when gosh, there are so many interesting things to do!

Maybe you’re wondering too. What’s next for you and me in this delicious second season? How are you pursuing your passions and curiosities?

The I Wonder series are stories and interviews with women walking new and uncommon paths, especially after having a traditional career. Tag along with me as we meet fascinating people pursuing their passion. I have so many people I’m wondering about but who are YOU wondering about? Email me the stories of women you’d like to know more about!

I’ll be sharing my first interview with you soon: a non-profit Executive Director turned Pacific Crest Trail hiker. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to hike the PCT, stay tuned:)

A lovely human pointed out that I am one of these women. Running a construction company for years, working with spreadsheets and numbers and financials to starting a mocktail blog to now a cancer advocate and a WRITER. Who would have thought. Certainly not me;)

The truth of the matter is that I’m feeling pretty content with my life as it stands. Will I follow in the footsteps of the banker turned flower farmer? Or the financier turned fashion designer? Highly doubtful but dreaming about the possibilities is sure a lot of fun:)