Pause

What does a career look like when you have nothing left to prove?

It felt a little bit sinful, talking to R on a Wednesday during work hours. We'd been trying to catch up for nearly two weeks, and she had found a pocket of time to call me during her commute on the East Coast. Of course I wanted to talk with her, but my conversations with R were never brief. Since college, and the few times we'd connected afterward, time stood still. Life was moved to the side. 

My business has propelled me so quickly forward these days that I've had a hard time looking sideways at what's going on around me, let alone behind me. But the universe conspires sometimes. Much of my business travel has brought me back to New York, where I cut my teeth in publishing, or to Chicago, where I grew up but never stayed long enough to appreciate it. This blog has been a conduit to people that knew me at very different junctures in my life. These people have reached out and re-connected. I have been forced to see how much--and how little--I've changed. R had found me via the blog and wanted to pick up the thread where we'd left it years ago.

R wasn't a traditional "BFF"--we didn't do everything together. And after college, when our careers took us to very different places, we didn't make a point of visiting each other. But I've always held her in my heart as a close friend. I felt I was at a significant disadvantage when she emailed me; she knew about my exploits from the blog and I knew nothing about hers.

The last time I'd seen R was at her wedding, nearly 10 years ago. She'd invited a group of women that I had become close to through her--all but one of them were married, or had been married, and some were having kids. And then there was me--single, unemployed, and living in New York City, about to start another miserable job that was to last not three months. I felt far less grounded than the rest of the women, but R brought me back to the reason I was there--to attend the wedding of someone whose life was so different than mine, but with whom I'd shared a unique connection. Despite the very different paths we both knew we would take after college, we used to spend hours on the phone or at the 24-hour diner talking about everything--boyfriends, the ridiculousness of others, and wanting to be impactful and in control of our lives. 

R wanted to spend her last night of singlehood with her girlfriends. At the end of our evening out she drove me to my hotel, where I learned there had been a mistake with my reservation, and I didn't have a room.

"Don't worry," R said. "You can crash with me." We ordered some fries from the drive-thru of the Steak & Shake and went back to her parents' house, where she was staying that weekend before the wedding. I remembered what I found so remarkable about R--her lack of formality, despite her ambition. Most women I knew who were "career" women wanted everything in their lives just so; they needed to perpetuate an image of perfection. R had spent her last night of singlehood out until 3 am, eating cheese fries, and sharing a bed with me.

Project management for real people

My latest, on BlogHer. One of my favorite people has a book coming out, and--like her coaching--it's really good.

Life in the Entrepreneurial Weeds

"So, what are your hobbies these days?"

I was having coffee with Nick, a peer from my high school days who found me via this blog. He'd just moved to the Bay Area, just a few blocks from my place. We'd agreed to catch up at a local coffee shop. Unbeknownst to Nick, our tete-a-tete about the past 17 years would make him more caught up with my whereabouts than most people in my life.

I didn't expect his seemingly benign question to cause such consternation with me.

"I travel...on business mostly," I said. "But I enjoy it...when I can get away. I write--or wrote--a lot. I do like to write, when I can." I wondered to myself, Is watching Top Chef a hobby? What about doing laundry?

The truth is, I have no hobbies--none that I actively pursue, anyway. I've stopped carving out spare time to pursue non-occupational interests. Spare time is for errands, or catching up on email. Thank God Nick was into salsa dancing--at least someone had something to talk about other than work.

Just before that I had been running errands with H-band doing things that for most people would seem mundane, but for me was good together time: buying towels and a shower curtain. My friend A laughed uproariously when I told her earlier last week that doing dishes was a nice respite from the Treo. Before her reaction I hadn't realized that I have become a bit insane; at best a one-trick pony.

Just lately I've become more aware of this, when people from my past have called and told me of the kids, doctorates, salsa lessons in their lives, and I speak of business trips. I've had more well-rounded periods in my life, when I took wine-tasting classes and belonged to reading and writing groups, but entrepreneurism demands a new level of commitment--at least it has for me--where the yoga classes are no longer possible, nor the lingering chats over coffee. The irony is that I chose an entrepreneurial path to balance life and my work; in truth I have experienced a bottleneck and have had to choose.

Nick told me that he'd spent 12 years on his doctorate. It was an all-or-nothing situation; he had to publish or have nothing to show for his time. The dichotomy and risk involved with academia pushed a colleague of his to leave and get a job in finance. He figured he'd make money first, then pursue his interests later.

"Twelve years is a very long time," I said to Nick, I could relate to his friend. "But you never know if your friend will ever do what he says he'll do."

"That's just it," Nick said. "You don't know."

Some people choose to work hard, play later; some people honor the journey and are willing to slow it down to widen the path. Some people never choose; they do it all. And I look at them, wondering where they put this ability to make it all happen; are they hiding it in their mouths? Despite all the lessons I love to cook up I still struggle with how one does it--puts work down to lift every thing else, without trying to cheat.

I've been reminding myself that despite my penchant for working I used to be quite familiar with the latest foreign films, wine varietals, NBA standings, and the best bike paths in San Francisco. I used to read all the reviews in The New Yorker and know odd facts from issues past. A long time ago I used to dance. And a long, LONG time ago I used to play video games.

Nick could hardly believe this when I revealed that I was an avid Atari player. Avenger, Frogger, that game with the tar pits. I could play all day.

"I didn't know you were a geek," Nick said.

I had forgotten that for a sustained period of time, a LONG time ago, I knew how to play. 

Quotes from this Weekend's Family Wedding

This weekend I was in Hanover, N.H. for my brother-in-law's wedding. Congrats to Dan & Deirdre; here's some color commentary that might not make it into the photo album

• "Are you wearing a bra under that?"
  --Mother-in-law, looking at my backless dress
• "Well, there's good wine, and there's good for the price,"
  --a distinction I made to my brother-in-law, the groom, when we went to buy booze for the rehearsal dinner
• "Let's buy the Bud Light for later in the night, when people are too drunk to know the difference,"  --H-band, on his libation-buying strategy before the rehearsal dinner
• "They've got to pick up stuff at K-Mart for the rehearsal dinner, so you should go with Marilyn--waitaminute, she's got five in her car. OK you go with Mom and Dad, and make sure Jackie and Steph have a ride--oh wait, they're getting here later. When do Grandma and Grandpa need to get there?"
  --Logistics planning during complimentary continental breakfast at the Hampton Inn
• "Where's Grandpa? I thought you said you were taking him ... Oh well, I guess I'll have to go buy prunes later. "
  --My father-in-law, upon learning that he was to have taken his parents to the wedding rehearsal and turning around in a parking lot
• "Doesn't he know I'm old and in heels!"
  --Grandma Phyllis, walking across the Dartmouth Green to the chapel for the wedding rehearsal
• "Hey Gunny,"
  --Grampa Seymour, a former WWII Navy sub seaman, busting Cousin Sidney's balls. Apparently Cousin Sidney was a Navy gunman, but was never stationed on a boat
• "I was researching the migratory patterns of chipmunks. Later in New York I specialized in bats."
  --H-band's second cousin Ethan's answer to my question, "What were you studying in grad school?"
• "I wonder if Ethan's seen Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control?"
  --H-band's retort to me, after chatting with Cousin Ethan and referring to a film about someone with an eerily similar profession
• "But what if the tuxedo's scratchy?"
  --My father-in-law, Arnie, protesting when his sons looked at the 30-year-old set of Yale longjohns (complete with with ass-flap) he was going to wear underneath his outfit to his son's wedding
• "If you wear those, Dad, I'll kill you."
  --The groom
• "You HAVE to look me up next time you are in New Jersey. We'll have lunch at the mall!"
  --Cousin Lisa
• "I want a picture of that couch, and the cat you said was on it."
  --Great Aunt Hilda, 93, referring to the note I sent after my wedding last year thanking her for her gift: a donation toward new furniture
• "You and you, in! And you and you, out!"
  --Cousin Janet, who took on photo-wrangling duty
• "How are your fire-extinguishing skills?"
  --Me, to my father-in-law, during the lighting of the unity candle, during which the mother of the bride was having extreme difficulty with the Bic lighter
• "Should I keep in the joke about the blow-up doll?"
  --My husband, the best man, five minutes before toasting his brother
• "I see you've learned a thing or two from your wife about exaggeration."  --the Groom, after my husband, the Best Man, toasted him
• "I don't have a lotta money; I have enough. And this...THIS! You can't buy this."
  --Grandpa Seymour, looking out at his adult grandkids