My Grand Plan of Life
I am experiencing that old familiar feeling again.......I know you know this feeling, too. A major life change has occurred where you are trying to adjust and understand how its all going to work out. The swirl of emotions are churning like the peaches, milk and cream in an ice cream maker. You know you are in control of your own destiny, but with so many directions available to you, it can be a bit overwhelming. So, what's a gal to do? My first inclination is to sit and do nothing. To think and to study the situation and eat whatever is in front of me.
I started this blog on the day after I dropped my last child off at college. I wanted to write down all the thoughts and feelings I had in this major life change from active Mother with kids at home, to an empty nester parent. The posts were all over the board....some sad, some depressing and others funny. I think my Mom called it "my verbal vomit", but nonetheless, the writing was very therapeutic!
I am not going to lie, it was a turbulent period in my life. Of course, I was so happy the kids were off at school, and starting their first real jobs. But, my daily routine was thrown out the window and there needed to be some real changes to fill in the voids of time and experiences. Did I create the life I wanted to live, or did I simply let whatever came my way to become important to me? To be honest, I think the latter was the case. I tend to do the best I can with whatever comes my way, instead of strategically planning and implementing my grand plan. In my case, my sister had started working as an independent stylist for Worth New York. She asked if I would fly out four times a year and help her with her seasonal trunk shows. There is not another person in the world I would rather spend time with than my sister, so it was a no-brainer. I fly out and we had a ball, selling this beautiful line of clothes to her small group of clients.
Through the suggestion of others, I was asked if I wanted to apply to be the Director of Business Development for Worth New York, in my home state of Arizona. It was never a career plan to do business development or work in the apparel industry, but I loved the line and loved working with women, so for the next two years, I worked hard and grew our state of stylists who did extremely well. I was surrounded by happy, successful business women and that was rewarding to me.
Always wanting to move up and to make a difference, for the next three years, I became the Regional Director (RD) for a blare western state area, then became the RD for the ten states of the west, then became the RD of sales for the same area. Lots of managerial changes, that I let wash over me, as I tried to do my best work for the company.
During this whole time at Worth, my husband's career had been flipped upside down by the financial crisis and the housing bubble. He was working seven days a week, trying to stay afloat and keep his company alive and well. At one point, he thought to apply for a different line of work, but it wasn't in the cards. The people he was speaking to, all said they wanted him to stay in his line of work, as circumstances have changed.
Together, we felt the time was right to move to the East Coast. After an exhausting 400+ days, we sold our house and drove to New Hampshire to stay in a family member's extra home. The offer fell into our laps, so we took it. (I see a pattern here.........). It's been exactly a year ago that we made the 6 day trek across this wonderful nation. We spent 4 months experiencing the fall and winter seasons, then moved to another family home in Cape Cod. During this time, I was still working for Worth as the RD of Sales for the west. It was so difficult to do the job well, due to the time zone differences and the extensive travel. I released myself of the job I loved because I knew in my heart I could not do the best job in this new location. Afterwards, we tried a two-month period of regional recruiting, too. But, it was time to plan my son's wedding and to move to our final destination, and again I could not do the best job possible under these circumstances.
Why did we move to Annapolis? I must answer this question about twenty times a day....and I still don't have a convincing asnswer to share. Brooklyn Heights was too expensive and would stress Bill out? Maybe. I was afraid of living in a dump where Wrigley could live "stair-free"? Maybe. Because the Baltimore airport could easily allow Bill to
Read more »
I started this blog on the day after I dropped my last child off at college. I wanted to write down all the thoughts and feelings I had in this major life change from active Mother with kids at home, to an empty nester parent. The posts were all over the board....some sad, some depressing and others funny. I think my Mom called it "my verbal vomit", but nonetheless, the writing was very therapeutic!
I am not going to lie, it was a turbulent period in my life. Of course, I was so happy the kids were off at school, and starting their first real jobs. But, my daily routine was thrown out the window and there needed to be some real changes to fill in the voids of time and experiences. Did I create the life I wanted to live, or did I simply let whatever came my way to become important to me? To be honest, I think the latter was the case. I tend to do the best I can with whatever comes my way, instead of strategically planning and implementing my grand plan. In my case, my sister had started working as an independent stylist for Worth New York. She asked if I would fly out four times a year and help her with her seasonal trunk shows. There is not another person in the world I would rather spend time with than my sister, so it was a no-brainer. I fly out and we had a ball, selling this beautiful line of clothes to her small group of clients.
Through the suggestion of others, I was asked if I wanted to apply to be the Director of Business Development for Worth New York, in my home state of Arizona. It was never a career plan to do business development or work in the apparel industry, but I loved the line and loved working with women, so for the next two years, I worked hard and grew our state of stylists who did extremely well. I was surrounded by happy, successful business women and that was rewarding to me.
Always wanting to move up and to make a difference, for the next three years, I became the Regional Director (RD) for a blare western state area, then became the RD for the ten states of the west, then became the RD of sales for the same area. Lots of managerial changes, that I let wash over me, as I tried to do my best work for the company.
During this whole time at Worth, my husband's career had been flipped upside down by the financial crisis and the housing bubble. He was working seven days a week, trying to stay afloat and keep his company alive and well. At one point, he thought to apply for a different line of work, but it wasn't in the cards. The people he was speaking to, all said they wanted him to stay in his line of work, as circumstances have changed.
Together, we felt the time was right to move to the East Coast. After an exhausting 400+ days, we sold our house and drove to New Hampshire to stay in a family member's extra home. The offer fell into our laps, so we took it. (I see a pattern here.........). It's been exactly a year ago that we made the 6 day trek across this wonderful nation. We spent 4 months experiencing the fall and winter seasons, then moved to another family home in Cape Cod. During this time, I was still working for Worth as the RD of Sales for the west. It was so difficult to do the job well, due to the time zone differences and the extensive travel. I released myself of the job I loved because I knew in my heart I could not do the best job in this new location. Afterwards, we tried a two-month period of regional recruiting, too. But, it was time to plan my son's wedding and to move to our final destination, and again I could not do the best job possible under these circumstances.
Why did we move to Annapolis? I must answer this question about twenty times a day....and I still don't have a convincing asnswer to share. Brooklyn Heights was too expensive and would stress Bill out? Maybe. I was afraid of living in a dump where Wrigley could live "stair-free"? Maybe. Because the Baltimore airport could easily allow Bill to
Read more »
Labels: careers
posted by beth at
12:03 PM
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Emtnester
