How I went down the rabbit holes...
Topic: My Story - End of March, early April 2020
So the schools were shut down, my husband was working from home, and in some ways, it didn’t seem so bad…I welcomed the break from the insanity of a packed out schedule.
Of course there was the supposed threat of this deadly virus, threatening to wipe out all of humanity if you didn’t stay away from any and all forms of life, other than those living in your own household, but other than that, life was good!
My life prior to COVID was a constant go, go, go!
Quick Flashback:
Within 10 days of earning my Mechanical Engineering degree from Penn State in the winter of 2001, I started my corporate career in the nuclear industry. My mom and dad were so very proud, and I do remember being excited at first. To go from a broke college student who can’t afford the extra 50 cents it costs to add pepperoni to a slice of pizza - to making $50k/year with a fancy title and some corporate perks was quite an improvement, but the excitement that comes with any new endeavor wore off quickly. It wasn’t long before I found myself wondering if a decent paying job in corporate America with good health benefits was the best that life had to offer.
I was thankful for the opportunity because most of the people I graduated with were struggling just to find jobs in their field, but it didn’t change the fact that I felt empty and lost on the inside. “Is this all there is to life?” I thought. Waking up to an alarm clock while it’s still dark outside, sitting in traffic for an hour during my commute, only to trade 8-10 hours a day for a pay check doing something that I don’t really like doesn’t sound like the brass ring that my family told me I had hit. Shouldn’t there be more to life than just making a living?
I started searching for something, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. Turns out I was looking for the meaning of life, and I found it in the most unconventional way.
Almost a year later in the fall of 2002, I met a group of young entrepreneurs whose influence on me caused me to make a career change…more on that in a later publication.
Back to 2020:
I have 3 daughters. They are now 11, 7, and 4, but when the world lost its mind due to COVID, they were 9, 5, and 2. Savanna, my oldest, was in 3rd grade. She had just qualified for the math olympics at the private Christian school where I was planning to send all three of my girls, and she was ecstatic about it. My father-in-law had even traveled in from Columbus, OH for the special occasion. When word came out from the school administration that they wouldn’t be going back anytime soon, and therefore the math olympics was cancelled, she was devastated. My middle daughter, Juliette, was in pre-school 3 days a week and her biggest disappointment was not getting to play with her best friend, Hunter, every day. Hallie, my 2 year old, didn’t know the difference other than that her sisters and Daddy were around a lot more, cutting into her time with Mom, which she didn’t like.
But having everyone home and no schedule to keep was actually a blessing in disguise…a chance to slow down and just enjoy each other without worrying about who had to be at what next, what time we needed to leave in order to get there on time, and all the other hustle and bustle that comes with a full house of 3 kids, my husband of 16 years, the family cat, and my mother…okay so the cat is pretty low maintenance, but the rest of them…not so much.
In the pit of my stomach, I still had a lump…a nagging feeling telling me that something wasn’t right about all of this, and no matter what I did to suppress it, it wouldn’t go away. Having extra time on my hands, I decided to start digging for answers. A few of my trusted friends and entrepreneur colleagues had been posting things on social media that caught my attention. I’ll admit that some of the things they sent me to look into sounded absolutely bonkers, but I knew these people…I had known them for almost 20 years and I knew they weren’t lunatics, so I asked them to send me some more information where I could do my own research. They sent me a list a mile long…
And so down the rabbit holes I went…
(to be continued)