Genevieve Jones, 45, was in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the only child of Andrew and Ruth Jones.
Genevieve was such an independent child that, at age 12, she took over organizing her own car-pool rides to skating lessons and sleepovers with friends.
In high school, Genevieve excelled academically and on the cross-country and track teams. When she was accepted to Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, she was thrilled and left for Philadelphia, determined to graduate at the top of her class.
But college proved to be the first true challenge of Genevieve's life. Everyone was there to graduate at the top of the class, and the competitive culture intimidated her. For the first time, she felt utterly unremarkable.
She battled this hopelessness throughout her Wharton years, turning to campus counselors for therapy. While Genevieve's friends relied on her to help solve their relationship or academic problems, she rarely opened up to them or her parents, feeling responsible for conquering her demons by herself.
Despite her periodic black spells, Genevieve graduated summa cum laude and went to work for an up-and-coming bank in Atlanta. She stayed late at the office and hit the gym before work, rarely allowing time for socializing. However, when she met Landon Talley, something clicked, and she found herself in love for the first time.
While the other men she'd known had all been high-strung overachievers, Landon was more broad-minded. Even though his business had just failed, his focus was on the quality of the experience. When he asked her to accompany him to Europe, she threw caution to the wind and took off on the three-week jaunt with scarcely any notice.
On their travels, Genevieve relaxed for perhaps the first time in her life. With the office an ocean away, she concentrated fully on Landon and was enchanted by his limitless enthusiasm for quirky local ingredients and strange new cheeses. When he proposed to her in Paris, she said yes, and they married shortly after returning to Atlanta.
After a merger eliminated the job she loved at an Atlanta bank, Landon encouraged her to accept the offer she'd received for a management position at a bank in Oxford, Mississippi. She agreed, and their first few years there were wonderful.
But once Landon's new restaurant was thriving, he no longer wanted to explore new variations and fuse new flavors. He settled into a routine that Genevieve found strangely complacent. Whenever he spoke vaguely of expanding the restaurant into a small chain, Genevieve stood at the ready to offer financial expertise, but he never followed through.
Meanwhile, her own career had suffered. Oxford was not Atlanta, and although she now occupied a vice president's office, she felt herself on a plateau. Genevieve began seeing a therapist to fight off the familiar depression, all the while reminding herself that she was responsible for keeping everything afloat. After all, Landon's restaurant eked out marginal profits, but her paycheck would fund their retirement.