You Betcha She Did! Life Advice, Business Tips for Rad Women Entrepreneurs, Leaders, Coaches and

56 | Navigating Midlife Change: Mary T. Wagner's Story of Resilience and Creativity

• Ladies First Digital Media Company • Season 4 • Episode 56

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Get set for a stimulating conversation with the multi-talented Mary T Wagner! Our guest, an accomplished author and photographer, took a bold leap of faith in her 40’s, swapping her career in journalism for a foray into law. She spills the beans on the unique trials she faced as a mature student, juggling academics amidst a sea of younger peers all while raising her four children. It's a narrative that rings with tenacity and a dash of serendipity that will leave you captivated.

As we navigate through Mary's fascinating transition back to her writing roots, it becomes evident how she beautifully blends her newfound legal expertise with her enduring love for writing. This journey led her to authorship, proving that it's never too late to follow one's passions. Furthermore, Mary's lively musings on British murder mysteries and slang, along with her ventures in painting, provide a refreshing detour. Witness how Mary's zest for life and learning new things radiates throughout our chat, serving as a beacon of inspiration for anyone contemplating a midlife career switch or those in search of a healthy dose of motivation.

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Speaker 1:

Did she really do that, you, betcha? She did. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of you, betcha Sheet the podcasts where women leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers, especially from Wisconsin, share their wit and wisdom. Today I have an extraordinary woman who has not been afraid to make changes in her life. I have award-winning author and photographer Mary T Wagner here, and she has been described as the Midwest's answer to Carrie Bradshaw, also favorably compared to humorous Irma Bombeck, but in sexier shoes. Originally a native of Chicago, wagner was a former newspaper and magazine journalist who changed careers get this at age 40, by going to law school and becoming a criminal prosecutor. She's also a mother of four and now lives in the beautiful coastal community of Sheboygan, wisconsin, where she draws a lot of inspiration for her writing. Despite her career shift to law later in life, wagner could never step away from the keyboard entirely, thus explaining her return to literature, which is one of the things we're going to talk about today. So, mary, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Reina, thank you so much for having me on. I am delighted to be here and that was a lovely intro. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, your life is fascinating, to say the least. Definitely an inspiration. Let's talk about that, like what made you transition to become an attorney at age 40 and go back to school. This is something a lot of people don't even consider as an option, so what led to that?

Speaker 2:

I would say serendipity plays a big part in the ripple effect as well. But you would have to go back. I would have to go back to my days as an undergrad at Marquette University's journalism school, where I was in the newspaper editorial stream of things and I was stringing for the Milwaukee Sentinel. And after I graduated I was writing for the Milwaukee Journal and there used to be two newspapers. Of course this is from the time when newspapers were like setting the standard for what journalism was and they were on paper. So I was doing that. But in my senior year I was already starting to get a little bit itchy as to whether this was going to be enough to just be sitting on the sidelines and writing about what other people were doing, or if I wanted to get out there and save the world on my own or accomplish something on my own. So I did apply to law school back then. I applied late, I got on the waiting list, my scores were middling for the law school entrance exams, but then I got hired by the Milwaukee Journal and here I am doing the job that I've been trained to do working for the largest paper in the state. People are taking my calls, I'm getting bylines, and this was just great and I literally never looked back. So I got married, had four children, developed a stream of writing that was basically focused on public broadcasting, doing interviews with celebrities and stuff, and it allowed me to stay home with the four kids and new girls, scouts and cookie baking and all that sort of stuff. And once again, I never looked back at that.

Speaker 2:

And then, 17 years later, I had a chance lunch with somebody who I hadn't seen since we were both in college. Haven't seen since, but he had become a lawyer and we were catching up on 17 years of everything that had happened in our lives and he I was jerking his chain, thinking you know, saying you know, you'd be a really good writer, and he's jerking going you know, you'd be a really good lawyer. And I just I laughed, I scoffed, it's like I'm happy with what I'm doing and I also didn't think I had the brains for it. I just didn't. But after that I started to think you know why does this seem familiar? Oh yeah, I tried to do this once before. Well, let's take the test, let's see how I did, maybe I can talk to them and letting me in part time, because of course, I've got four children, and the youngest at this point is like three years old.

Speaker 1:

Oh man, Okay, yep.

Speaker 2:

And so somewhere in there, I also broke my back in a horseback riding accident, which put me in a body, cast for three months and put off taking the test by a few months and I took the test and at about the same time Marquette University opened up a part time program officially for the first time.

Speaker 2:

So I was led in as one of this pilot group of seven students and I dropped my then five year old kindergarten and then I drove I'm sure it was over the speed limit from West Bend down to the law school to find myself in a parking space to walk in and do this thing, as they say in the Sopranos. But you know it wasn't simple and it wasn't easy. It was terrifying. I remember when I got the acceptance letter. When I got the acceptance letter it was the same week that I turned 40. And I was smiling so wide that entire day that my face hurt. But I remember sitting there in one of the orientation classes. I'm looking around and all these children, literally because I am all about to be their mom, pretty much.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that moment. Like, what was that? Like you know, because most of the other students are probably in their mid-20s, right? So you're like, here I am.

Speaker 2:

It was awful. I could feel this cloud of doom descending on me as I sat there in that classroom thinking what was I thinking? I can't possibly do this, I just can't. I am competing with kids who have no responsibilities generally, no spouses, no children, no dogs, no horses, no, no, all of this stuff that I'm balancing in my life. And they can get up and they can open a library and they can study all evening and they can go out to the bars and they can debate about law school stuff at the bars and they can be studying while they're having their Cheerios in the morning. And I just can't possibly do this. And oh, it was just an awful feeling.

Speaker 1:

So what helped you persevere through that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, one thing on the way home. I thought well, you know you've already borrowed the money, you just have to show up and do this. So I did and to my great surprise, I did really well. I mean, in my first semester. I never graded as high as I did ever for the rest of my term in law school, but the first semester I did. I graded very, very well. I was top of my class in one of the hardest first year classes and that was a big jolt of adrenaline and it was a big vote of confidence in me. But I didn't know it was going to be like that. I went into it thinking, oh, if I could just come out of here with a C average, I could do something useful with this. You would also be surprised. I don't know if you've had children or you're immersed with other people who have kids, but there is a resilience you bring to the table that you don't even know about when you've been a soccer mom.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the organizational level, the ability to balance so many things, really works in your favorite. The young kids unfortunately haven't had a chance to develop and harness those skills. From what I understand, after law school you went on to have a very successful law career and even was able to argue cases in front of the state Supreme Court. And so then what happened? I think it was 20 years you were practicing law then, right, Then what brought about the next transition back to writing?

Speaker 2:

Once again, serendipity, and also friends who believed that I could do more things than I did at the time Myself. I sometimes joke that most of my progress has been done like sideways or stepping backwards, accidentally, and then suddenly, oh, my goodness, what a lovely thing. So, yes, I was a prosecuting attorney for 18 years and then I retired about 2018. But years before that, I explained, I had been a newspaper journalist and then I'd been a magazine feature writer and apparently, my love of writing, I mean, when I started law school and even when I finished and was in the job, I thought, oh, the writing part of my life is completely over. I'm on this new adventure. And oh my God.

Speaker 2:

But a friend of mine really liked the Christmas newsletters that I would write. They were entertaining and they were light. And she and her husband, who was a blogger at that time, with a three-year-old son at home, kept urging me to start a blog and they pushed, and they pushed, and they pushed, and they pushed, and they pushed, and they pushed and finally, months later, I thought you know, okay, excuse me, let's give this a try. And they had to set me up with everything from let's pick a name that hasn't been chosen before I'm running with Stiletto's blog that was the start of my writing essays to the how to get the signature image of my shoes on the beach onto the website, out of my camera onto the website. Tech is not my strong suit, but they helped set me up on that and I sat and I wrote for the first time, just to please myself. We're still doing this part time At this point.

Speaker 2:

I got divorced in 2005.

Speaker 2:

And so I've got a dating life starting up and my life just has new written all over it. And I started doing the blogging and I started winning some awards with blogs that I was doing, the essays that I was doing which were all slice of life which is where the comparison to Irma Bomb that comes in and also Henry David Thoreau I don't know, somebody compared me put those two things in a sentence, which is a pretty bizarre combination. But it was a wonderful mentally freeing thing for me because for the first time, I was not writing to please a master, I was not writing to please an editor, and this was just taking the lid off and said okay, where are we going today? Are we going to write about love? Are we going to write about grief. Are we going to write about gardening or chocolate or finding the love of high heels at the age of 48? It was liberating.

Speaker 2:

I had never written like that and ultimately I turned some of those, a lot of those essays, into essay collections and published them myself. Published them and those won a few awards and it's just brought me not a lot of money, but it's brought me so much fun. I consider myself a millionaire in that way.

Speaker 1:

Speaking of that, I love how you kind of wove all those different threads of your life together. Do you have a personal philosophy that has carried you throughout your life? Or you know what I'm saying? Just because you've just not been afraid. You've been fearless in terms of like, well, let's try this, let's see what's going to happen and a lot of people would love to be that way, but don't have the drive to take it on. So I guess yeah, I don't know if you have a model you want to share or any advice about changing your career path, trying new things.

Speaker 2:

Well, there are so many things that spring to mind, but right now I'm going to fall back on my. It's never too late to make mid-course corrections, because I went from journalism to magazines and motherhood to law, to combining that with writing again. When I say it's never too late to make mid-course corrections, that doesn't mean throwing your entire life over either. You don't have to. It's not a binary choice, it's not a, and it wasn't. For me, it turned out not to be a. Well, you can be a writer or you can be a lawyer, but you can't do both. Because it turns out that I could do both and those were very enjoyable.

Speaker 2:

Another important thing for me to remember is to let people who believe in me carry me along sometimes. So if it wasn't for this guy that I met once in oh God, at this point it's like 30-something years who said you know, I think you'd be a really good lawyer, the seed would not have been planted for me to look back on why I didn't end up in law school in the first place If it hadn't been for my friends who said Mary, you really need to get back to writing, and blogging would be a way for you to do it. We're going to keep pushing you. Until you do, I would not have started the blogging which led me to writing, groups and conventions and conferences and travel and fun. Don't be afraid to make changes. You don't have to throw over your whole life to make some of those changes and let people believe in you, because sometimes the ones that we love see more in us than we do ourselves.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is fantastic advice. I love that. Yeah, listen to what others see in you and, like you said, even though it seems like being a lawyer and being a writer aren't related, as you were talking about it, you clearly showed how skill sets from both kind of combine together and you can just do these little pivots, what sometimes seems like big pivots, but shifts to kind of pursue other passions. Well, speaking of other passions, I know you love British murder mysteries and you have a new book out, kind of book called of Bairns and Wheelie bins. Now, I also love British murder mysteries. My favorites are Midsummer Murders. Oh, I love anything Paro, which I guess really isn't British, but I still love Agatha.

Speaker 2:

Christie's Paro. I actually interviewed him. Yes, I interviewed because I was doing a lot of stuff that was related to masterpiece theater and mystery, and so I interviewed him by phone from he had just finished some performance on stage in London when he called and we did this thing. I think it was like two in the morning for him and I hadn't seen any of these. I really hadn't read anything more than like one or two Agatha Christie mysteries when I was a teenager. But this was my job was to do advanced pieces on these series that were starting. So he had not this series, it not comes in the United States yet. And so here I am, I've got multiple children and I'm doing an article a month for public broadcasting magazines and this was kind of a coup. It's like this is the next big thing on mystery.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I'm so jealous you got to talk to him. I want to ask you some British murder mystery questions. So first of all, I want to take a guess at what Bairns. Bairns mean. Is that children? Does that mean kids? I don't even know.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Bairns are children or infants.

Speaker 1:

Really Bins are those garbage garbage cans. I have no idea what's that.

Speaker 2:

They are, oh my God, they are garbage bins that have wheels on them. Okay, hey, I wasn't there for a while. I know, and I that it just made me laugh there. I don't know if you watch Vera. Vera is this, you know, stout, cranky, brilliant female detective and she always has a handsome male side. Her sidekick was out in the yard at some crime scene and he said something about finding evidence in a wheelie bin and you know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I, when I realized what he was talking about, just made me laugh for days, because it just makes you feel like you've got winged fairies escorting you to the curb while you're taking out the garbage. But we'll leave that. Barons and Weleabens is the title of this, this Kindle short that I wrote. That's a guide to what the British detectives are saying over there that we don't have a clue about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, can you give us a couple other fun British words we should know.

Speaker 2:

Sure. So if I said the words fly tipping, what would you think?

Speaker 1:

First, my first thought is fly fishing, but I was like nope, that's not it Fly tipping. I don't know, I don't even know, I mean Okay well, you know what that was.

Speaker 2:

The first thing that I thought too is the fly fishing and Brad's kid and the river runs through it movie and all those beautiful fly fishing scenes. No, it means illegal garbage dumping.

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay, see, totally wouldn't have known fly tipping, fly tipping.

Speaker 2:

Another one would be on the lash. Okay, let me guess. On the last one, I say that on the lash.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna think it means something like that's done quickly, like on the go in the moment. I don't know. That's my best take at that one.

Speaker 2:

Okay, not quite, but the thing that, well, the thing the first with spring to mind is, you know, mutiny on the body, on the lash, keel, hauling all that wonderful stuff but that has nothing to do with it. On the lash means setting out socially with the intent of getting shit-faced drunk.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I want to be okay, totally not what I thought. Okay, that's on the lash, what a lot of 20 year olds do. Okay.

Speaker 2:

Oh my God, I tickety boo Tiffany, or tickety boo, Tickety boo.

Speaker 1:

Okay, my guess for that one would be something along the lines of aw shucks like, ah, tippety boo, like something that didn't go well.

Speaker 2:

It means something is absolutely splendid. Oh, how are things going? Oh, it's all, tickety boo, tickety boo. Oh, and one more, let's see, because I made a list of some of these Money for old rope.

Speaker 1:

Money for old rope. I think like trust funds, old money, money that's. You know, maybe you haven't earned, but it's been handed down in your family. That's that's what comes in my mind for that one. How close am I.

Speaker 2:

I had to look that one. I mean, basically I've had to look most of these things up. Money for old rope means something that where the money comes really easily, a job that you're doing, that that's no work at all. So this thing you're going to do, oh, that's just money for old rope. It's something that you're going to get paid for, but it's hardly any effort.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, I like that, Something that comes easy, we could all use that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is. It's just an entirely different language across the country. It's just an entirely different language across the pond, and it has been so much fun. I've been watching these now for several years I think, ever since I really got streaming and I discovered Shetland and Hintreland and Vera, and I always have the subtitles on, particularly with things like Shetland, where the Brogues are so deep. I can't understand what the heck they're saying under any circumstances. So when I sit out to do this, I finally thought you know, I'm just going to keep a notebook by the table, by my recliner, and as I'm watching these things, I'm going to be writing these down. And I did and I came off as quite a list, and now that I'm watching things over again, it's like oops, I missed that one. Oops, I missed that one.

Speaker 1:

That's for volume two right.

Speaker 2:

I will go back and I'll add another couple of dozen to this little book.

Speaker 1:

Well, what do you have anything else in the works? I mean, you've already done so much lawyer, right novelists, magazine, reporter, journalist, children's author. What's next for you, mary?

Speaker 2:

Well, that's a strange thing because I've had a. The last few years were quite hard With the combination of taking care of my very elderly mother with multiple health problems and some of those were mental health problems and I was the only person in the Western Hemisphere to deal with, and so there was a lot of stress Navigating of all of that, and then, of course, we had the pandemic, and it was anyway. The last few years have been More difficult in terms of writing. Now I did manage to finish the third of my children's books because after I did for essay collections, I thought you know, I'm gonna do something different. Let's, let's try writing a book about a kitten that's in the circus museum, and, and so one of the challenges was that was I, and again a friend pushed me into thinking about it. I did the illustrations for the book and I had to learn how to draw cats, and I really had to learn how to draw in order to do this, much more so than like doing doodles on my children's lunch bags years ago. So that was a thing those three children's books and I got the third children book done in the pandemic and still juggling all the stuff with my mom, but it was. It took a lot out of me. So I can't say that words have really been springing out of me lately to say, oh, you must write this or you must write that.

Speaker 2:

But what has occurred is I've always been a photographer, I've always been interested in in color and framing and things like that, and I've been in a group in Sheboygan college, sheboygan visual artists, for at least ten years because of my photography.

Speaker 2:

But now I'm getting the itch to create things with my own hands and so I'm taking up pastel painting, I'm trying to learn how to do watercolor painting and I am just looking at the world. Ever since this summer when I went to a Workshop for a week and the clearing in Dore County on pastel painting, since then I have come back and it's like I'm seeing the world in planes of color instead of paragraphs of things that I have to write down. And so for the moment I am, I am exploring color and painting and trying to put, trying to develop my own style, trying to develop a little bit of skill at it, and I know at some point I'm gonna get back to the writing because that's just in my bone marrow, but in the meantime I am just thinking, ooh, dark green versus light green and a little blue undertones, and that just makes my eyes light up. I Love that make.

Speaker 1:

May we all embrace the curiosity that you have for life and for trying new things. I mean, it's inspiring and just wonderful, so keep it up.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. I have a lot of people urging me on when it came time to do the illustrations for my fending in the circus cat books which, incidentally, everything I do is available on Amazon, and most of my books, the Finnegan books and one of my essay collections is that word Haven Bookhouse in in shabuigan here. But when it came time to what the heck am I gonna do to illustrate this book, my plans to find an illustrator sort of following through, and once again a friend of mine is saying you know, mary, he used to draw horses when you were a kid. I bet you could do this. And I went oh no, I couldn't, I couldn't. And I was like a little engine that could for 24 hours because I went from oh no, I can't. Oh no, I can't, I can't. Possibly. Oh no, I can't to I think I can.

Speaker 2:

I went to the library and took out a book, and well, I took out every children's book that I get fine about how to draw cats and how to draw animals, and within 24 hours I had gone from oh no, I can't. I know I can't do, I think I can, I think I can do, I know I could, and it was a lot of work, and I must say that I've really upped my game in the sketching between the first and the second and the third book, so the first ones are far more rudimentary. But Once again it's a friend sitting next to me saying Mary, I think you could do this, because she saw something in me that I didn't and I just decided to run with that.

Speaker 1:

That belief, girl. Those are great words to end on, mary. Thank you so much for being on the show. If you'd like to get in touch with Mary Wagner, please check the show notes. I'll have links to how to contact her, as well as all of her books on Amazon, as I was. If you like what you're hearing on you, betcha, she did. Don't forget to subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and also share it with your friends. There's a lot of people out there who might need a friend to push them to that next career, just just as Mary has with her friends. Until next time, take care.