20 day check in

There are 80 days until I turn 40. I would like to tell everyone I had some complete breakthrough in my first 20 days and wow everyone with reflections of an awesome nature. But the first 20 days led to a semi-unexpected breakdown. Here I am celebrating my life thus far when handed several unexpected bag of tricks at home and the work place, it kind of changes a girl’s game plan.

The home stuff isn’t anything major, just financial changes that one deals with when you have three children. The joys of dental bills, growth spurts and pre-pubescent angst, puberty, insurance increases for our soon to be driving teen and whatever the hell the youngest is going through! We will just call it the diva condition.

The work thing however is a bag I never expected to receive. Our president announced her departure two weeks ago and until last week I was in a complete state of shock. While in shock about the departure and what that would mean for all of us, we had a new employee and a new project to deal with. No time for self pity, just put on those big girl panties and push through.

But pushing through isn’t always easy when it comes to something so uncertain. Our leader has been there since the beginning, helped create a vision and maintained momentum with a strength that few could rival. We all followed suit even when things became uncertain during a weakened economy, a new mayor and loss of fiscal contracts. You wonder if anyone new can come into that role and truly understand the importance of what she did and how she did it. And of course there is finding someone to deal with the eclectic band of misfits she put together as her staff.

We really are a mixing pot of crazy people who on paper you would never think would ever work well together. When your focus is downtown Indy and you all share this unbridled passion to help create a city to be proud of, you find a common ground. In that common ground we became a family. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for anyone of the people and they wouldn’t do for me. Right now we are all in our big girl and boy panties holding hands taking deep breaths as we try to get through this thing together.

So as I look at 80 days until my big day, I think about the 100 plus days until I say good bye to a woman that had a hand in changing the last 11 years of my life. She was my greatest cheerleader even when I made mistakes. She gave me opportunities that I never thought I would have. When no one else could see the potential I had, she did. How do you say good bye to someone like that? You can’t really, they are always a part of you and the person that you are.

In 80 days I turn 40, but I’d think I’d like to be like her when I grow up.