I got married at age 38. I graduated from dental school at age 26. If you do that math, you notice that I had to somehow fill 12 years there!

I saw another blog entry that was expressing worry about life after school, and it made me think. Why did that never stress me out that much?

I didn't exactly have a job when I got out of school. I had a profession, and I had a place to practice - a couple of younger dentists in town offered to let me rent their office for 50% of my gross, after lab bills, or something like that.

But 50% of nothing is, well...nothing! I think one month (the first one out of school) I wrote them a check for 23 dollars. Yeah, that's right. My gross was 46 dollars. I was on my way to easy street.

It got a little better, then it got worse again. And I was offered (and accepted) a job as an associate in one of the area's biggest offices. There I think I was paid something like 35%, and was responsible for a percentage of my laboratory bills. I continued working at the other office, but not really much. Then I got a position with the Will County Health Department, doing pediatric dentistry for four hours a week.

Oh, and I lived at home.

It was a struggle, believe me. Living at home, I didn't have too many expenses. Just a car payment and ancillary expenses associated with the vehicle, and two student loan payments. Neither was enormous, but they certainly took a bite out of my meager take home pay.

Yet, here I am, something like 23 years later.

It did help to go "home", in many ways. Obviously it made it less stressful financially to live with my parents for a year. But I also had my old friends, who did two things: gave me a support group of a sort, socially, and provided me with some of my first patients. (For that I'm very grateful to them.) And about a year after I got out of school, I made the move to buy the office from those two younger dentists and eventually go over there full time. Through that purchase (of assets, and of goodwill toward patients) I met a patient who was a drummer, and he and I became bandmates from then until his passing in 2006. Playing in bands was great fun for me.

As far as dealing with the curve balls life throws at you, well, for me, it was just a matter of taking them as they came and dealing with them - much the same way I did in undergrad and grad schools.

I admire those who make a huge move after school, for example, up and moving to another state or to another part of this state. I often thought I would do just that after school, but in the end, I couldn't and didn't do it. I went back home.

It's worked out pretty good.