Nobody Tells You About The Quiet

I attended the last board meeting of my corporate career just over two years ago.

At the board dinner that evening, a couple of the members,men who were already semi-retired, working on consulting projects, serving on boards — pulled me aside and said something I wasn't expecting.

I smiled. I said something confident and composed. I had spent 25 years being confident and composed.

And then I went home and thought: of course I'm prepared. I have been running toward this moment for years. I know exactly who I am without a title.

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I was not prepared.

The first few days were fine, even exhilarating. The calendar was empty. Nobody needed a decision from me. I could have coffee slowly. I could take Scotty on a long walk without checking my phone. I kept waiting to feel relieved.

What I felt instead was a strange, low hum of wrongness. Like a sound you can only hear when everything else goes quiet.

I had built my identity on being needed. On being the person in the room who had the answer, who could read a board, who could close a deal. I had not fully realized how much of who I was, or who I thought I was, lived inside those walls.

There is a whole industry built around helping people get to retirement. Financial planners, investment advisors, equity compensation experts. I had all of them. What nobody had given me was a map for what happens to your sense of self when the work disappears.

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This is the first post in what I am calling the Dear Collett series.  This is a collection of honest essays about the two years between my last day in corporate and the day Collett was born.

They are not a redemption arc. They are not a cautionary tale. They are just what actually happened when one very driven woman finally had permission to think without limits.

Some of it is funny. Some of it is embarrassing. All of it is true.

If you have ever achieved the thing you were working toward and wondered what comes next — this is for you.

With love, Beth