I have felt a changing undercurrent of sorts in my life for nearly a year. It started with an internet friend losing her daughter in a very tragic way. The grief I felt for someone I barely knew was surprising to me and my world shifted a little bit. Last summer I planted pink and purple flowers in all of my front yard gardens in her daughter’s memory. It was a way to remind me to slow down because life can change in just a blink of an eye. Then my mom became ill and passed away near Mother’s Day. I found myself feeling like I had just put down a book I didn’t know I had been reading for 34 years.
I took 6 months off from learning anything new for the last part of 2014. And in January of 2015, I came home from work and announced to Chris that I didn’t want to be an engineer anymore, nor be the sole earner in our family. He asked what our life looked like and I told him I didn’t know. He said, ‘Ok, we will figure it out.’ Within 6 weeks I was laid off from my job that I loved so much.
Serendipity, I suppose.
Although we had recently streamlined our monthly budget, had savings, and I was given 3 months of severance pay, my industry has slowed down considerably and there was the real possibility I would not be able to find a job without moving out of the state. We feel like Colorado is our long term home and we had a strong desire to stay put. With the urging and guidance of an amazing friend, Chris and I decided to kick off serious business planning for our future business and foundation. (I’m purposely being vague since we aren’t ready to put everything out there yet.) It felt good to be dreaming big and planning the next 10 years of our life together.
During our planning I was still looking for the next job that would keep me interested and excited, in case we couldn’t get our own business off the ground in time. Another amazing friend offered Chris a job doing home inspections. The pay would give us some extra time to build our business in case a job for me didn’t come through, plus Chris could have flexibility, work for a good business owner, and learn something new. Seemingly overnight, I became the stay at home parent and Chris became the working parent. Huge relationship dynamic shift for us.
I forgot the kids at school one day. And we all ran out of clean clothes because I genuinely forgot that Chris couldn’t do laundry while working 50 hours a week. To be honest I didn’t really enjoy managing the household or providing for my family in that way. I had always wondered, but now I know for sure. Chris has missed being with the family every day: picking up the kids from school, taking them to practice, having dinner together. The timing worked well for Chris to finish up the training he needed to do, but I really, really wanted to be back working. And just like that I was offered a job at the end of Chris’ training. Serendipity indeed.
My new job is something I’ve never done before – a start-up company. It’s an incredible opportunity at this point in my career, something that holds my interest and gives me something to be excited about. I feel lucky to be in this position and with both of us working, we have greater flexibility in how we build our company and foundation. If truth be told, I really just want to run the foundation part, which is likely several years out so this aligns with me continuing as an engineer for a little while longer. Our goal is still to start something of our own by year end, but manage growth because we can, not because we have to.
We are still dealing with the transition of me going back to work, Chris also working, as well as continuing to make progress on our business. The kids are adjusting the fastest. They continue to remind me to just let life work itself out when I feel overwhelmed with all the change.
