Month: October 2015

I quit my 22-year career in city planning in July 2015. I didn’t just quit my job, I all but ended my relationship with the entire professional planning sector but for a volunteer commitment with an organization I love. It keeps a heartfelt reminder on my calendar of the issues and trends that have driven my passion for the past two decades.  It reminds me I’m capable of any task I set my mind to. Believe it or not, as competent as I’d become in my career, once I stepped away from it I had moments where I doubted myself and wondered what transferable skills I could bring to the table in a new environment. Now as the leaves fall and the colors turn to set eyes on the season of Thanksgiving and holiday cheer, I feel a transcendental mind shift has taken place on its very own without very much help from me. Here is how I dealt with my reality shift.

Day 1. No job to go to, I was alone. The first day of school after our fantastic vacation to Europe this summer, my husband off to work, and even the dogs off to grandma’s house, I stood alone in the living room and literally turned 360 degrees to survey my new surroundings. Sure, it’s my home and we’ve lived in it for three years but now I would lay claim to it as a home office, a place to ponder, a place to do practical tasks and a place to dream the impractical dreams in the back of my mind. It was on this day I realized I’d been so busy in my life I’d not stopped to dream about what might be next for me. I’d envisioned life in my safe place in a career I knew, but as that reality turned cloudy, a new destiny was beginning to unwrap in my mind. I just had to give it time. And so I did.

Four weeks later…I gave it approximately four weeks which is apparently as long as mind can go without having a new endeavor to call my own. I knew my current philanthropic endeavors at schools and volunteering in my former field would keep me busy, and it did. I needed more to learn and to grow. I did exercises from a book about shaping my future and was encouraged to write down what I was passionate about. Travel is always at the top of my list, and of our busy life and work have allowed travel in bits and pieces. Our summer was an exception where we took an extended trip to Europe; this was a trip I planned, I worked tirelessly to organize, and never once doubted the amazing opportunities we would have as a family to think about ourselves and our world differently just by visiting another small slice of it away from home. It was amazing, and so I chose travel as an industry to fill my soul and my mind with new opportunities to help others fulfill their journeys.

Days 2-60…or so… Of course I’ve not blogged about all of this because I’ve literally been going 100 miles an hour to learn and just scratch the surface of the travel industry. As I’ve embarked on a new industry and all the learning and growing pains that go with it, I’ve transcended my own self-imposed limitations. Everyone has a “block” – mental or physical, but it’s there to find ways around it, over it, through it. Blocks are designed to be moved. I literally felt like my efforts to build a company were the “water” that moved my block out of it’s safe hold and out of my thoughts. Under mentorship of a host agency, I started my own company – really, my OWN company! I am learning about business structures, accounting, marketing, and get to make armchair travel a professional past time. Through all of this my husband has agreed to support us both as I learn to get things up and running and in return, I fill in the time gaps (which have admittedly been few) with the domestic chores we both shunned as two people working outside the home. It’s been a fantastic journey of great ups and some lows (the days where I am not surrounded by co-workers who can encourage me just by being them).

I do not sleep in well, I’m up at 5:15 making breakfast and lunch for early swim team practice and by 7:15 everyone is out of the house. I’ve even walked the dogs and readied them for their journey to Grandma’s doggie day care (a loving custodial arrangement to ensure my parents have their “dog time”.) Once everyone is gone, I again, stand in the living room and ponder the next step. Working at home can lead to somewhat of an attention deficit disorder with so many things that need attention, so it is certainly an art to focus on one task at hand when all the other hands are crying to multitask (this is not even possible, my friends. Just ask your brain.)

What’s more important is that I get to be home when my now teenagers arrive home from school and practice. I get to pick them up for impromptu lunches where they reveal their deepest darkest thoughts…or at least share with me without staring at their phones. They smile and laugh and I watch them really grow up and get to know how they work..or don’t work. My start-up business takes an enormous amount of time…time I carve out of my day so I have time to be there for my teens. I’ve always said that anyone can diaper a toddler, but nobody else can be their mom when they need “mom” the most.

So, I am here, at the start of my journey with work, with family and with motherhood (an ever-evolving journey). I quit the first career I ever loved because it became less important than being here, and learning something new. These are just two simple observations of my own life that I might never have made had I not stopped what I had been doing to simply breathe.