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Thread: I want to hear your stories...

  1. #1
    Veteran Member sunny,*'s Avatar
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    Default I want to hear your stories...

    ...about starting over, and really big life changes that YOU made happen. Successes, failures, and anything in-between.


    I've made this post because I'm in a strange place in my life and am considering some major changes. I've already done the starting over thing once, and most of the choices during that time turned out to be not so great... but I'm smarter and stronger now, so hopefully I can make these big changes with more insight and maturity this time around . I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation! So let's hear your stories









    “Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” -Alan Watts

  2. #2
    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: I want to hear your stories...

    well, I have told my own story over and over again. After completing a degree in Respiratory Therapy, I held both full time and per diem jobs as a Respiratory Therapist at hospitals in NY and NJ. I would up going through a divorce ( should have happened much sooner ), and in the process found myself as a single mom receiving zero child support money - plus being saddled with 5 figures worth of 'surprise' debt ( thanks to my not quite ex running up massive credit card bills and then sicking creditors onto ME as an equally responsible spouse with a halfway decent income ). At any rate, I wound up working nights, weekends, holidays etc. for about 60 hours per week ... and earning just enough money after taxes to cover my living expenses and my now ex's leftover credit card bills.

    About the same time, a new strip club opened up nearby. I originally tried out as a dancer thinking that I would be better off cutting back my Respiratory Therapist hours to a mere 40 per week, and earning MORE supplementary income from dancing a couple of days per week than I was earning from extra shifts as a per diem RT. However, I quickly discovered that I could potentially earn FAR more money dancing full time ... to the point of actually paying off my ex's bills, being able to save money for my son's college education, and being able to save money for my own retirement.

    So after discovering that I had contracted Tuberculosis from a hospital patient ... and thus being forced to lose two weeks worth of Respiratory Therapist work while the antibiotics treatments kicked in ... I decided to go 'out on a limb' i.e. quitting my RT jobs in favor of becoming a 'serious full time exotic dancer'. While this was scary at first, I'm infinitely glad that I did so. As I learned more about what 'sells', I repeated 'invested' in myself in order to increase earnings potential. After a few years I had 'grown' into a feature dancer, with a pay website, a self-hosted webcam, magazines and videos etc.

    After 'retiring' after some 12 years of 'serious full time exotic dancing', I own two houses ( one in NY and one way south of the border ), my son is just finishing a ( 'name' ) college degree in fine arts with zero student loan debt and a decent white collar job sewed up, and I have enough of a savings / investment nest egg built up that if I so choose I can spend the rest of my life living off the passive income those investments generate ( albeit I have to spend 50 weeks a year outside the USA in order to do so via legal avoidance of US taxes ).

    So yes I'm definitely glad that I 'started over'. If I hadn't, odds are that I would be facing an imminent pink slip as a Respiratory Therapist as state and local gov's make budget cuts ( or being forced onto graveyard shifts / working with prisoners / some other undesireable aspect of RT ), odds are that my son would have wound up with a 2 year community college degree and a dead-end job, odds are that I would still be renting an apartment in NY / NJ, and absolutely guaranteed that I would have been forced to continue working until age 65 whether I wanted to or not !!!

    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 04-30-2011 at 09:26 AM.

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