My 2017: Achievements and Failures

appiepearl (51)in #my2017 • 9 years ago

What a great idea! Excited to read about everyone's year!

2017 was a pretty huge year for me. I took a lot of chances, finally made some changes in my life that I've been wanting to do for a long while. This year I finally made ideas become reality.

Quick backstory:
I grew up in Las Vegas but moved after high school. Life did what life does, and I found myself 1800 miles away for 15 years, and crazy home sick. In 2016 I took the first big step and separated from my husband. Most figured that would be it, I'd immediately head back west after that. But I didn't. I somehow just couldn't. I was insanely emotionally attached to my job and, well frankly, allowed too much of my identity to come from my professional accomplishments. I'd climbed the ladder fairly quickly at a large company and was living a cushy lifestyle but with very little (ok, none) life/work balance.

But that was 2016. Old news!

So this year in February I was told I had to lay off a couple employees. I lost many nights sleep over that decision. I mean, who wants to be the one to tell somebody they lost their job? And how do you choose? So after a lot of thought, I decided to offer myself up for lay off in order to save the jobs of my hard-working, much-deserving employees. So after 13 years of busting my ass and losing myself to a career, I found myself with nothing to do. No emails to answer, no calls to return, nothing.

Nothing except the rest of my life and the best thing that's ever happened to me

I spent a month or so eating out, day drinking and smoking pot. Walking in the woods 2 and sometimes 3 times a day. I had zero schedule, zero responsibilities and I was taking full advantage. Then I realized WOW, this is my chance. My chance to completely change my life and live the exact life I want to live. Now is the time to move. We would miss our long walks in the woods, but I started packing and looking for jobs across the country. I decided I wanted to be home at night (I was traveling 3 weeks a month before) so I looked for jobs without travel. I wanted to be challenged, but free of my previous reputation and industry contacts, so I looked for jobs outside my comfort zone. I found a job before I hit the road for the move. Oh yeah, and I picked up a puppy along the way. As if having no place to live (stayed with family at first) and a dog and a cat wasn't enough. What's one more? She's pretty cute.

I found a place to live, and settled in pretty easily. Dabbled in dating, but as I'm sure you can imagine, dating at 43 is not easy at all. In 2016 I had a medical issue that caused me to gain some weight, so I was gun shy because of that. Pesky tumor is gone now, but still fighting to get back to slim. Sin City is not the place to date old and chubby haha. So I really just set out to have some fun, see what happens. Expect the worst and hope for the best kind of thing. And out of nowhere I meet this amazing man. He's kind and funny, and smart. And sexy. And did I mention funny and smart He's radass and the cherry on top to this new life I'd created for myself.