Back to the big City
After a month in the solitude of Montana, were it not for my family, it would have been very difficult to return to Dallas. Even with the cold and unsettled winter like weather in the canyon where our new home is rising out of the ground, the beauty, peace, and solitude is so vastly different than the bustling city that it makes my soul long to linger.
On the other hand, a month away from my family was not easy either. It is kind of funny, I used to travel all over the world for weeks at a time and while I missed them, I guess I had convinced myself that what I was doing for the "company" was important enough to separate me from my family. Why is it that? I didn't marry the company, I didn't create children with the company, yet often I placed a higher priority on it's needs than on that of my own family. This time the separation was really for the benefit of our family's future and while I loved being in Montana, I missed them more than ever. I think that is because I am no longer distracted from what is most important in my life.
Upon returning to the city, I learned that the culling at my former company is still in progress. Several more of my former associates and friends have been released. It is all a part of a scenario that, were it not that it is happening to what was my former life's work, would be intriguing as it appears to be a movie in the making. It has all the critical components. There is now even a battle for control of the company between the current chairman and a billionaire investor who wants control of what he feels has been badly mishandled over the past year. Looking on the surface, on can certainly see his point. A failed bid to purchase the major competitor that resulted in the merger of the number two and three competitors making them even stronger. A lackluster attempt to overtake an online competitor who in the past couple of years has rocked the industry and established themselves as the major competitor of the future. A swing from a $155,000,000 profit in the first quarter of last year to a loss of $55,000,000 last quarter and a complete halt to 18 years of consistent tremendous growth that made the company the worldwide icon it is. It is no wonder someone thinks the company has been mismanaged. On top of all this, the chairman took compensation and bonus along with stock options that were, in the words of the billionaire investor, "unconscionable". Let's just leave it at that, knowing that those bonuses and options could have more than paid for all the job cuts at the company last year. But after all, it is a corporation, not a family. Boy were my priorities misdirected.
Back to reality, my current reality that is. It is nice to be with my family again. Even if it is here in the city. A couple of more months and hopefully we will depart from here to Montana forever. All that is left is to sell our home. Until then, I will be splitting my time between here and there, dismantling a former life here and building a better future for our family there.
For the first time since we have been married, there is becoming a sense of permanence to where we are moving. In the past, we have always moved with the understanding that it was somewhat temporary. You do things differently when you perceive it as permanent. Details that were unimportant previously become important yet items that just needed to be complete in past residences become a part of the future being built so rather than hurrying their completion, they become part of the detail that even if not complete when we move, they will be part of the future reality so taking time to do it right makes short term inconveniences more palatable. It is a very different perspective. One that is lost in the corporate world of today where achievement is measured in days and months, years at the most, not in lifetimes, and certainly not in the growth of an individual or family.
It was six months from my corporate d-day yesterday. I only know that because I foolishly programmed a reminder in my PDA after it happened. Six months, what a difference. Six months of separation from the corporate jungle and six months of healing the soul, moving toward the last best place and our new life. It has been a good six months.
posted by Unknown @ 8:14 AM
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