Paradigm Shift Wakes Local Woman from a Dead Sleep.

Wilmington, NC -- Last night Marjorie Cast of Hidden Valley was awakened by a violent paradigm shift.  She stated that the jolt was so extreme it felt like the whole house shook off its foundation.  

“I sat straight up in bed around 3:00 AM and realized that my life is way different than I had planned.”  She stated that she thought she would be professionally established and rich by the time she turned 43 but that that didn't seem to work out as she had planned.
“I have all these degrees and all of these skills, but no where to use them,”  she stated.  “For years I have been going along seeing that ‘big break’ just around the corner and always just out of reach.  But last night it hit me like a 9.2 earthquake.  I have been to California.  I know what earthquakes can do.  I realized that I left those breaks in the dust a long time ago, but I am still running in circles like a pack rat stuck in an exchange loop.”
She stated that the paradigm shift jostled her whole reality until a new reality mushroomed from the destruction.  
“I always saw myself with a book contract, a book tour and an agent to keep track of everything.  I mean I was ready to have the instant hot water dispenser hooked up in the kitchen at the summer cottage any day now, but then I realized that I am a renter, and I can’t make major plumbing changes in my apartment, and that the summer house is a pup tent stored under the bed.”
She rocked slightly on her heels and stood in silent introspection for a moment.  “I do have the pool I assumed I would have,” she brightened at that realization.  “Our complex has a nice concrete pool, and I don’t have to clean it.  That’s a good thing.”
“I do have parking right in front of my building,” she added, grasping for the silver lining.  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful especially around Thanksgiving.  I mean, these are first world problems.  It’s not like I can only buy generic although generic is, in most cases, just as good.  It’s not like I don’t have food or anything like that.  It’s just that that jolt was pretty rough.  I thought the roof might fall in, but then I realized it was just the ten year old upstairs pogo-sticking in the living room again.”
Cast concluded that the next phase of her life was not going to be filled with grand old expectations, but she has decided to take things a day at a time.  She has resolved to put some sort of nick-knack on the mantle where she has always left a space for an Oscar, Emmy, Peabody, or at the very least a citizenship award.  As she wiped two fingers along the empty space, she remembered that she did have a perfect attendance award from grade school that she could fill the space with instead.
“Perfect attendance is something right?” she stated, smiling.  “Maybe I didn’t become the woman of my dreams, but at least I showed up.  That’s something right?”