Some people know what they want to be when they grow up by the time they reach high school, and some of those people actually manage to create that life. I’ve always admired those people for the clarity, the simplicity, and the singularity of direction in their lives.
That is neither me nor my life, however. I had a rough draft for my life plan at that young age (graduate from college, begin a world-changing career, marry the perfect man, raise perfect children, and live in perfect suburbia), but nothing specific. Ha! I had no idea what that career might be, no pull to, really, anything, yet I was sure that somehow it would just happen! Instead, my life has unfolded as a series of events and circumstances from which I made choices, sometimes quite unlikely, that moved me in many directions.
My parents, Jim and Margie Householder, were stationed in Munich, Germany for three years after Dad graduated from the Naval Academy. It was here that my younger sister, Dana, and I were born. Once back in the states, we moved around a bit in my early years before settling in Mountain Home, Arkansas just as I began first grade. So most of my growing up took place in and around this small town. This is where my roots grew deep into the Ozarks dirt, rocks, trees, and water. My love of nature was nurtured in the woods and the creek where we lived, where my parents still live. No matter where my life has led me, this deep love has never left me, has been one of my few constants, and, in fact, has brought me back home.
As the daughter of two talented people, an engineer father and a pianist mother, I grew up knowing I’d be great at something! My assumptions were a bit grandiose, as most idealistic teens tend. I pictured myself a leader, a doer, big time. Funny how sometimes we know ourselves the least. Life sent me many opportunities to understand my strengths and weaknesses. I was just a little slow at catching on!
At the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, I took the six-year plan, earning two Bachelor of Science degrees. The six-year aspect was due to a couple of things. First, I struggled with declaring a major because I had no idea what to do and was afraid of choosing wrongly, and second, I took a 9-month break in the middle and moved to Dallas to give modeling a shot. Turns out, both were a bust. I was too “girl next door” for modeling in a bigger market, and even though I was having a great time, I figured I’d better go home and finish college. One of my degree choices was geology, because I loved it, but I chose computer science because it seemed like a good bet for a career. I forced myself to complete the degree even though I had no aptitude for it. After graduating, there were no job opportunities for me in the field my degree combination fit, which was the oil business. Even though I was dismayed to be unemployed with two college degrees, I was secretly pleased, because I couldn’t picture myself there, and my tiny inner voice whispered “nooooo.”
With no options available to me, my good friend, Sarah Tackett (who’d gotten me into modeling through her agency in Fayetteville), threw me a bone and offered me a job, for peanuts, working with her at her budding new talent agency, The Agency, in Little Rock. This was one of the first times my life took a major detour from the rough draft I had planned. Working with Sarah I discovered a career path I never imagined possible: one in film and television.
Sarah and I cast speaking parts and extras for television and movies, like NBC’s Under Siege and CBS’s Bluegrass, motion pictures Biloxi Blues and 21 Grams, and many local radio and print advertisements and TV commercials. I totally caught the film biz bug. I worked a few years with Sarah, and then freelanced a few more, working behind and in front of the camera. The one and only job I got on my own was in Dallas on Born on the 4th of July, which was a hard job but a great experience. All the while I yearned to move to Los Angeles where I could seriously pursue this new dream.
While working on Bluegrass, in Kentucky, I developed a great working relationship with Simon Wincer and Rob Rooy, the director/assistant director team that was key in the milestones of my short-lived career, starting with my first job in production (and my all time favorite), Lonesome Dove. To this day, I feel so privileged to have experienced that. Later, Rob offered me a job on the movie, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, which started filming in Tucson and finished in Los Angeles. Finally, my ticket to LA! One of those same men offered me a position on the TV show, Homicide: Life on the Street, in Baltimore, where I was able to earn my way into the Directors Guild of America. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
For weeks after Harley wrapped in LA I wondered if I’d ever work again. I knew only the crew I’d just finished working with, was sleeping on the couch of one, and began questioning my decision to just up and move out to LA. What was this small-town girl thinking? Who did I think I was? Then my phone rang and a friend from Harley said I should interview with the assistant director on the movie he was working on. That AD was Peter Giuliano. The movie was Bugsy. Thanks to my friend I got not only the job, but also a husband!
I worked with Peter on several more movies over the next few years: Dracula, Toys, and Dave, and a few without him: The Player and American Heart. It was just after I finished season one on Homicide that everything changed. Peter proposed. This marriage proposal came with a very large stipulation, however … I had to quit my career! This was not in any life plan I had imagined!
After much consideration and soul searching I agreed with Peter about quitting my career for the following reasons: We knew that our career paths would separate us in different parts of the country for at least the next two years; we knew how hard the business is on marriages; and I began to acknowledge that a career in production was perhaps not the best choice for me (that little inner voice whispering again). Though I loved the film-making process, the camaraderie developed with your crew family, the magic of the film set (I still miss those things), I realized that I was not cut out to be running a set. The job requires strong leadership skills, time and budget management skills, and the personality to command the respect of a largely male-dominated business, not to mention very long hours on your feet. I did not possess these skills, and in trying to make myself fit that role, I was becoming someone I didn’t like at work (the “B” word comes to mind). And so, that most wonderful chapter of my life ended and the next began. This was the next major detour from the rough draft toward another life I hadn’t dreamed of: one of freedom.
I must admit this transition was not a smooth one. I harbored a lot of resentment, struggled with my sense of purpose and identity, and spiraled into a world of hypercriticism and micro-management. I was even less pleasant than when I was working! I realized that from the time I was a teenager, I had based my identity solely on what I did rather than who I was. I was a basketball player, a cheerleader, a model, a bartender, a commercial crewmember, an extras casting assistant, a film production assistant—you get the picture. This was a very hard thing to undo. I felt absolutely invisible and worthless.
It took about three years of dabbling with this and that, taking classes, managing our corporate books, and overseeing our location home and farm home (we purchased a place in Ava, Missouri), to begin to redefine myself.
Perhaps the most significant turning point was the death of my aunt, Riva, from cancer. I was able to go to Denver and spend weeks with her and my cousin, Rita, before Aunt Riva’s final days. I helped Rita with the arduous task of going through her mother’s lifetime collection of belongings, which would have been unbelievably difficult for her to do alone. I was so grateful to be able to do that. I can’t begin to express the value of that experience.
I began to realize that Peter did not take something away from me, but rather gave the greatest gift of all—time. I had worked at one job or another since I was 13. I worked all through college, spring breaks, and summers. In the film business I worked so many hours I barely had time to do laundry. I never knew what it was like to have time. This, I began to cherish.
With this time I’ve been able to learn and do many things, like dabble with art, photography, and music, garden, resume horseback riding, hike, travel and volunteer. The freedom to recognize the opportunities to volunteer is an exceptional gift. I’ve had the great fortune to give my time to a creative arts program involving children whose families are caught up in the legal system, to working with horses both at a ranch in California and here in Mountain Home, to the Performing Arts at Arkansas State University-Mountain Home, to photo styling for photo shoots, to helping out with the wonderful national reading program for children here in Mountain Home, the Black Pony Literacy Project (thanks to Bonnie Smith and StoneCreek Ranch). Through volunteer work,
I began to see that I had something of value to give. Here, I found validation, appreciation, purpose, and gratification in ways I had never experienced.
But the greatest value of time for me is having the opportunity to nurture…everything. Relationships are the most important—my marriage, my family, my friendships, my pets (okay, my fur babies), and even myself. I’ve been able to go to, and care for, friends who are sick or recovering from surgeries. I’m able to jump into crisis situations and help out, with a calming presence, until they are resolved. This, and what I can offer as a volunteer, are where my true strengths lie.
Where I once tried to impose strengths and attributes on myself that were what I wished I had or thought I should have, rather than what I really had, I have learned to recognize and value what I actually have. No, I am not going to make a huge splash in the world, but I can make a difference on a much smaller scale, to people in my inner circle and to causes that really matter to me. And this, I’ve realized, is not only good enough for me, not only fulfilling, but priceless.
After many years of living/working in various cities across the country (including parts of Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, and Nashville), our shared love of nature, woods and streams, has brought Peter and me back to settle permanently in the Ozarks. We still have our place in Ava, and now a home near Lake Norfork. It’s true that my life is missing some of the things that were in my original rough draft, most notably children and that world-changing career, but I have a very rich life filled with friends and family and volunteer work that I love.
If my present self could say anything to my past self it would be that although it’s important to have goals and to work hard to achieve them, sometimes the steps to realizing them will lead in a different direction than expected. Embrace that and allow yourself to reshape your goals.
Even though there’s a part of me that is disappointed in the failure of that singular direction and the goals of my youth, I finally learned not to force or fight the progression of my life. I’ve learned the art of letting my life flow and trusting that I’m exactly where I should, and want, to be. I am happy and grateful, a most excellent goal. M! June/July 2014
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