Leaving the Nest

I’m less than 5 months away from retirement.  You must think I am a real go-getter to be able to retire at 52 years old.  The truth is I only had to manage the life cycle of two products that started just over 21 years ago (22 if you include the gestational period).  I probably could have fabricated more products, but our business plan focused on just the two with the hopes that they would provide lifelong dividends.  If we had too many, we would be outnumbered and overwhelmed.  We didn’t spend a lot on R&D luckily, but we certainly paid more than our fair share to get the products ready for market and introduce them into the world.  We foresee these launch costs extending for another 4 years, but hopefully they will generate their own profits after that, and perhaps spin off into new ventures in the next 5-10.   While I will be retired from my full time job, I anticipate being pulled in as a consultant every now and again when the products come up against competition or enter foreign markets where they lack expertise. 

If I had read the job description before I embarked on this 20+ year commitment, I probably would not have applied.  But as it were, it is difficult to put into words the skills that are required to launch this specific type of product and the gargantuan amount of time, patience, wisdom and emotion that are involved.   I would like to say that in my annual review I received glowing remarks and was consistently promoted and given generous pay raises.  While my responsibility level only increased and the potential pitfalls verged on the truly dangerous (from putting up the stair gate to talking about drugs), my salary stayed the same ($0).  The less tangible “benefits” of my job actually lessened.  Early on, my kids used to smile lovingly at me from the crib and profess their love for me every day; later, during the bleak teenage years, I went through days where I barely heard a grunt while they gobbled down breakfast and headed off to school.   There has been no third party confirmation of my performance, and I’m not sure what rating my offspring would give me.  It doesn’t really matter I suppose, what’s done is done.  Nothing is perfect, but they are both headed to college, so that is one thing.  While the job has been challenging and all consuming at times, it has also brought me the greatest love and joy I have ever known in my life.  I would do it all over again.  And as long as one of them commits to putting me in a decent assisted living facility some day, I will be pleased and consider myself worthy of 5 stars.

I oscillate between being nostalgic for the past and looking forward to having my own time/life in the future.  My kids increasingly want to spend more time with their friends and much less time with me.   Intellectually, I can reckon with this turn of events because I did not want to spend much time with my parents when I was in my late teens/early 20’s either; but really, I’m so much cooler than my parents.   The lesson, I suppose, is that you are never as cool as you think you are.  

As I conduct my own private “exit interview” to assess the last 20 years of my life spent raising my children, images of our life pass before my eyes.  First, I think of all the things I wish we had done:  taken more camping trips, rented a beach house every summer, traveled more, played cards and “bored” games as my husband calls them, performed volunteer work overseas.  But I realize it is too late for that, their childhood has been formed and I can’t go back and change it.  So I reminisce about the unique things we did do as a family and the memories they will have:  summer trips to Lake Powell, driving to Pender Island in Canada, the many places they skied throughout the west every winter, the teams they played on, the hikes and bike rides we took in the mountains, and the incredible friendships we formed with other Park City families.

I moved to Park City 15 years ago this month when Shaye was 3 and Mac was 6.  We lived for a brief stint in a ski house in Deer Valley.  Mac could ski well enough on his own but Shaye had just barely gotten up on skis.  The next year when she turned four, we tried to teach her by ourselves, which as most of you know involves hours of screaming quads while they ski between your legs.  Consequently, we put her in the Deer Valley ski school for 2 days a week for a few weeks.  I remember picking her up on her last day with her sparkly unicorn helmet, and taking the chairlift up so we could ski down to where our house was located.   At the top I would remind her to pick up speed so we could get high enough up on the ski access hill so I wouldn’t have to walk as far with our equipment.  Prior to this day, it was an exercise in mood management and battling willpower to get us both back home.  But on that day, as a new ski school graduate, she gleefully skied behind me on her own past the log homes and totem poles that dotted the “Last Chance” run at Deer Valley, and we were both beaming with pride and accomplishment.  Today, 14 years later, and the last time I will ski with Shaye for a long while, we skied down the same trail.  As I skied down with a smile on my face mixed with tears in my eyes, I paused when we approached the proximity of our old house thinking she would also appreciate this nostalgic moment.  But she didn’t.  She sped past me using all of her years of ski race training; charging by the custom homes with moose sculptures and didn’t even glance at the old stopping place where we gathered our skis and she hopped on my back to finish the trek back to our house together.  She is impatient with homework to do, friends to see, and a future that is bright.  She doesn’t need my help climbing the hills or getting down them anymore. 

I did my job well and it is time to let her fly.   My nest will be empty, but my future is also lit with possibility, and of course the occasional consulting gig.