I hope to write another entire book on this subject one day, but I am starting with this blog, which is based on the little bit I do talk about it in my first book, as it relates to my mental health. I am quarantined right now, like most people, thanks to the COVID-19 virus. I figured I would use that time to finally write some blogs I have been wanting to write, in order to give all who are interested something to read. I would also like to encourage others to do the same. Maybe even turn it into a book one day. We all have a story to tell!

For the later part of my childhood, I remember for the longest time wanting to be a Vet.  There were many other future careers I pondered in my youth, including ice cream woman, and including owning my own scrapbook store, but being a vet was the main one I pursued seriously for a while. I worked a a vet my senior year of high school and loved it. I planned to go to Mississippi State or Auburn, since both had such great vet schools. The only reason I considered Mississippi State is my then boyfriend, now husband, was from Mississippi and wanted to go back at the time. We both tried repeatedly, but failed to get our ACT scores up that one more point we needed to have out of state tuition be the same price as in state. So, we both went to Auburn.

Before even getting accepted, I changed my mind about vet school and got into Business school instead.  There were many reasons for this. One was while working at the vet, I saw the vet worked a lot. I also did not know if I could put animals to sleep or even perform surgery on them. I even cleaned the surgery room, but the thought of actually being the one to do the surgery, scared me, which eliminated many other careers for me as well. It doesn’t scare me anymore. If I were the person I was now at 38 when I was 17 or 18, I would have no problem with that part of the job, but I did then. I had no idea that I had it in me to handle such things.

My first day at the vet, I almost passed out holding a ferret, while it’s foot had to be amputated. He had gotten behind the dryer and hurt himself. I would go on to see much worse, without almost passing out. The worst I can think of is a dog who returned home after being hit by a car. One one side of him you could see all of his insides and he had gang green. I still remember the awful smell. All the vet could do was clean up the wound, there was nothing to sew, it just had to heal on it’s own. The dog ended up okay and it was truly amazing.

I sat with dogs as they were put to sleep, and every single one of them was on the brink of death already, and the vet was just ending their suffering. I cried with a male coworker as two little girls said goodbye to their dog that had the same name as my dog at the time. I remember all three times I called my now husband, crying because a sick dog I had sat with had died, and that one puppy that needlessly died due to the owner’s neglect. I had bottle fed this puppy back to good health, only to have him return soon after with an injury he would die from.

That first job would be the beginning of many things that helped me grow a stronger stomach and to grow as a person. I would later have my own child, get my own two dogs, work in Senior living and work in a daycare. I am still young, but I have worked for 21 years and had quite a crazy unexpected career for someone who was so obsessed with planning her life when I was younger. I was in such a rush to grow up, get married, make money and have kids. Vet school would take 7 or 8 years and I did not have time for that. My grandmother would talk about how much fun the Marketing people at the bank she worked at seemed to have, and how she sometimes wished she had done that. I still did not know what I wanted to do, but she did make Marketing sound fun, and once I looked into it, it seemed like a broad major that would give me a lot of options once I did figure out what I wanted to do.

So I went to Business school at Auburn. My desire to one day write my own novel or own my own business, be my own boss, was always there, but that seemed so risky and impossible. For now, I focused on starting at the bottom and maybe eventually working my way up to CEO. If you have heard the Kenny Chesney song, “The Woman With You”, and heard the lyrics, ‘..the girl I was with the business degree, probably wouldn’t recognize me, I was gonna run the bank. I was gonna run the map.” Yep, that was me.

I would go on to be the Receptionist in my dorm, would work at Chick-fila on campus for a semester, and would even have a marketing job that had me going to businesses to get them to offer a discount on a card sold to students. I would finish school in only three years, because remember that rush I was in to grow up. In my next blog, I will begin to talk about my career after college, which was not what I expected at all. Click the link below to read, This Isn’t the Career I Ordered 2….

https://justbuyheradress.com/2020/04/02/this-isnt-the-career-i-ordered-part-2/

Bio: Amanda Dodson Gremillion published her first book in 2012. She began revising it in 2019 and republished it as Just Buy Her A Dress and She’ll Be Fine. The story chronicles her experience with severe postpartum OCD, anxiety and depression. Amanda is a graduate of Auburn University, and now lives in Calera, Alabama, with her husband, Jay, their daughter, Aubrie, and their two dogs, Honey Girl and Cooper. She hopes to write more books in the future. Follow Amanda’s journey on Facebook,  or twitter at https://twitter.com/AmandaGremilli2 and order her book here.  Also, follow her on the Mighty here Amanda Dodson Gremillion | The Mighty Contributor or listen to her podcast here Just Buy Her A Dress and She’ll Be Fine • A podcast on Anchor . You can also find her on Instagram here Amanda Dodson Gremillion (@justbuyheradress) • Instagram photos and videos.