She turned down invitations to kitty parties, and the ladies often quipped,
“What do you do all day?”
She had quit her job, but was always busy – writing, painting, building an enviable online profile. She volunteered, enrolled for many courses, and managed to complete ten of those.
They never understood what she did. Some of them labelled her a snob, but she was used to it. She was paying a social price for being different, being a lifelong learner.
She had charted out a whole new career path, when she launched a start-up. It was a life by design.
Reena Saxena 
Sounds a little like my life when I quit my job to take care of my son and everyone acted like it was because my husband was rich when really we just made a lot of sacrifices to make it work and still do.
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Underlying assumptions that women just work to bring in the jam..
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“What do you do?” implying that a paying job defines you is the first annoying and ridiculous question people ask too often. The second is “What do you do all day?” posed to those that don’t seem ‘productive’. Why should they care?
Sounds as if your character spends time wisely rather than “killing time”.
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There are deeper layers to it. I’ve found people introducing me by the last corporate job I held, rather than acknowledging the work done later, bcoz that is too trivial and piecemeal in their understanding.
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Too bad for them.
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That is a life by design well-lived, Reena. The curiosity and passion of a life-long learner is a much ricj=her life than being one of the “ladies.”
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Thank you, Charli!
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time like grains
of sand
never yours
nor in your hand
for very long!
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