Over the last month or so, work has taken over. I have had back to back business trips, added in two personal R&R days with an acquaintance who is now a friend, and have been juggling personal responsibilities and longing for home time. I am thankful that things are pretty relaxed on the home front right now. J mindfully and with character quit his job and is searching for another one, so without experiencing his constant stress second hand, he’s been able to unwind a little, which has allowed me to unwind a little. S is working hard at his classes and bringing up his grades, thank goodness. He’s taking a mental health day today, but I do think he really does need it. I have been navigating a small health issue with my gallbladder, and after an endoscopy and an MRI, no one still has any answers except that there isn’t much that can be done for the sometimes incredibly intense pain that I’m experiencing. I’m trying to wean myself off my reliance on Advil.

I am trying to figure out what this next chapter will look like in regard to employment. I currently work for a company that I helped build from a startup to a multimillion dollar company. I get lovely perks … for example, I was invited to a meeting last week where I was picked up by a private jet, which was a first and awesome and I took a lot of dorky photos of that experience. I get to go to nice places. I get nice hotel rooms. But I travel a lot, and I experience an extreme amount of stress.

The founder of the company I work for doesn’t want to work anymore and basically just wants to sell. We had a less fruitful year in 2023 than we have in the past, and he isn’t able to get the price point he wants on the company, so he is coming in and just basically demanding profit, not listening to the challenges, and putting a lot of pressure on me to get the company where it needs to be. As you know, I am a perfectionist, so this is always my goal.

We used to be friends, or at least I thought we were, in the startup phases, in the trenches together. Now, he has elevated himself out of the trenches to the point where he doesn’t want to do the work or even know about the work, he just wants the profit and if he doesn’t get it, he nitpicks me and the team that I know is working nonstop. It’s pretty unpleasant and has gotten to the point where I neither respect him nor want to work for his ultimate company sale (and who knows where that leaves me when he does sell). I really like my paycheck, though; in fact, as discussed in previous blogs, we need my paycheck, so I am looking to potentially make a significant employment move. I am too young to retire. I am too poor to retire. But I don’t think, unless something changes with my current position, that this will be my last job, as I had hoped. I am 44 years old, on my second career, and think I am ready to push on to my third and final working chapter, whatever that may be. Alas, it is not retirement.

In the name of the self-care that had me starting this blog, I have decided to unapologetically control my narrative. I don’t care how much he’s paying me and relying on me. I am trying not to care about my best friend and my brother who I brought in to work for this company. They are grown ups and can control their own narratives. I am tired of being a victim of my expectations and what I thought would happen, what I deserved to have happened with this company I have put my blood, sweat and tears into for the past 10 years. The reality is that it isn’t what I thought it would be. It has grown into something that doesn’t jibe with the things that are important to me. So either I find something new or I protect my mental health by not allowing it to matter so much to me by allowing my perfectionist personality to take a mental pass while still appearing like I care about my boss’s bank account. I haven’t figured out how to do this yet, but maybe I will get better at it.