After 10 years spent trying to be Superwoman - mother to two amazing young boys, working 13 hour days to try and support a lifestyle we thought was so important and partner to an incredible man, not to mention the daily drudge of maintaining a House and Garden level of housekeeping - I got the opportunity of a lifetime. The banking crisis meant that my employer wanted people to volunteer to take a lump sum to leave the daily slog and spend more time with their families. For so many I know the decision was difficult but for me it took less than 5 seconds. I decided to take that package, satisfy some of those things I had put off with the "I wish I had the time.." excuse and find myself.
The previous four years had been the most difficult of my life - so much so that I had forgotten what my personality had been like before. Bear with me while I get if all off my chest therapy style... At the end of 2006 there was a massive change project at the bank and long hours, excessive stress and pressure led to the loss of a baby. Within weeks of this news, we finally got the diagnosis for the illness my Aidan had suffered for months. A barrister, he had started falling down stairs and slurring his speech without any visible cause. He was found to have a number of blood clots on his brain and had to undergo firstly an experimental sonic treatment to break down the clots and then to have surgery to remove the clots left behind.
To top it off, I found out that one of my best friends from school who had been like a brother to me and another son to my mother since my dad had died, had been physically and mentally abusing my mum in order to get access to her bank account. The bank reported it to the police and found that over $10K had been taken. However, the pressure of police questioning and the betrayal led to my mum having a heart attack and fall that left her with brain damage and unable to look after herself. I am so far away and my brother and sisters are so busy that we had to make the difficult decision to put her into a home due to the amount of medical care required. Despite the CCTV footage from the bank it was impossible to go ahead with the case without mum's testimony so the charges were dropped - so not even the satisfaction of justice being done to ease the pain.
In the aftermath of all this, I was offerred a role in Risk Management which in the spirit of looking for a change I took. Seemed like a good idea at the time but took me away from a job I loved - the coaching and mentoring of future leaders. Still long hours, still very stressful but with more travel and less job satisfaction. Not a win you might say. By the time the package was offerred, my bags had been packed for at least a year!
I left Halloween 2009 with plenty of plans and dreams for the future and not at all scared. The rough outline for a feature length film screenplay, a book and lots of adventures to have with my gorgeous boys.
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