Recently, my boyfriend Tim and I crossed paths with a woman whom we used to work with four years ago at a company called DiLusso. She and her husband are still with the same company, one which I had left because it was an unhealthy amount of stress. I can only imagine what it would have done to me if I had stayed four more years. I would honestly have grey hair before thirty. The worry lines on my face would be deep. The time and opportunity to grow as a person internally, would have been blocked. DiLusso is one of those all consuming companies that sucks you in and demands all of your energy, your thoughts, your free time.
The woman asked if we had heard about her husband’s heart attack, how she had been so close to loosing him the week before. She retold the story, of how he had turned white and left work, had called her around noon needing a ride to the hospital.
As they waited in the E.R. for his operation for an angioplasty and a stint, he joked with her. While holding his aching chest, he whispered, “so this is what it takes for me to have time to take my wife out to lunch?”
The operation went well, and now his teenage son follows him everywhere. He is his father’s shadow, and in turn, his own shadow is darkened by the knowledge of how limited their time together may be.
We asked if her husband was making changes. In diet, yes. But at work? Is he still so committed, working 12 to 14 hours every day? Going in every weekend? Her hesitation let us know that the work schedule would not change. This man knows how to work hard, and to say he spends more time with the company than he does his family is a laughable understatement.
She was in a place of defending and justifying, and I let her stay there. She did say that her husband was too young to have a heart attack at 44.
“Not with his lifestyle,” I said. Not with that amount of daily, hourly stress, not at all. And with no change, I understand what his son now knows.
She then asked, “How are you guys? Are you okay?” The question held the tone of: is your lifeboat still in one piece? Will you guys make it another 10 hours? I had to be firm and honest. “We are more than okay! We are awesome!” I said.
“Yes, we are really good.” Tim told her, “We just got back from a week together in Mexico, and we have tickets now for our next trip to Costa Rica.”
I could see in her eyes how tough it was for her to hear how different our priorities had become from her own. And I am reminded that everyone is where they choose to be. We both, individually, made the choice to leave the company. Because we wanted more out of life than work. Because we recognized it was unhealthy. And because do not allow ourselves to stay in a situation like that. Four years later, we are both filled with gratitude that our situation is different because of our choices.
Running into this woman was a reminder. A reality check. Reflecting on the conversation, my boyfriend and I realized we could easily still be in the same place as this couple. This woman’s husband filled Tim’s position when he left. It is that close to home. Their reality is that they have not been to lunch together, have not shared an hour alone on a date in a very long time. Our reality, thankfully, is seven days together on an island.
I have thought a lot about, and written before about being consciously aware if the situations and relationships I am in are healthy or unhealthy. And about being willing to change my situation, to leave behind any role that does not support my true essence, that drains me. I left DiLusso, it was because of that. Quitting that job was the first time I had actually drawn the line and decided I deserved better. I had no other job to jump to. I had no other form of income. I had a heavy guilt trip of abandoning the huge responsibility that had been placed upon me at work. Still, I left, I leapt forward, into the vast ravine of the unknown. The only thing I knew for certain, and kept trusting, was that the unseen place which awaited me would be better.
I feel this interaction with the woman last night was life yet again coming full circle. It is the me I would have been if I had stayed, meeting the me who left. She is my ‘what if’ I stayed. I am her ‘what if’ she left. Perhaps it is just me showing myself, reminding myself that I made the right choice. Her reality is everything I don’t want in my world. And I have moved beyond that by choice.
I understand now that the life I am living is poignantly the other side of that ravine. I created what I was jumping to and am living the ‘something better’ out every day.
