Life is a Charade

Sep 03, 2024

When we played our charade, we were like children posing.

Playing at games, acting out names, guessing the parts we played.

(Charade, Lyrics by Johnny Mercer)

Oh hello there!

It’s been a while, I know, I know. It is not lost on me that my first post here was a year ago tomorrow and I haven’t quite kept up at the pace I had originally intended.

I began this newsletter as a diary of sorts, detailing our evolving plot to move to Europe. When it started I was in a full-on, rip the band-aid off, scorched earth approach to completely upending my life. Totally normal and healthy. The cesspool office culture I was chained to was an unsustainable torture and when a promising position went to another candidate, I was shattered. I uttered the words, “I hate my life” between sobs in front of my son, which is probably the most awful thing you can say in front of an impressionable child. I couldn’t go on.

We had always talked about living in Europe and my resolve was fortified out of a sheer determination to escape my work-life prison sentence. Documenting it all here felt like a means to keep me honest and on track. Yet, work hit new depths of depravity, new reporting structures took effect, and then in December, I was informed my position was eliminated.

I’ve lived a lifetime since that moment.

Being handed a get out of jail free card is equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. Could this be the easy “leave now” message I had been waiting for?

No.

Simply put, nothing is ever that easy. I was emotionally raw and tossed in the middle of the ocean after over 25 years of dedicated corporate life. I had no plan. I certainly didn’t want to jump back into another corporate job which were becoming less secure by the minute. The pull of Europe was still strong but how we would make it work?

So there I was tumbling head-first into building a business. Not a beautiful swan dive but more of a fetal positioned flop. And that is where my head has been since January when I built a website and started wrapping my arms around what this would become.

In the middle of all that, I had to figure out who I was. I had an identity crisis. When you spend more than half your life as a high performing, ambitious, corporate ladder-climber, you take on the identity that will serve you well in pursuit of the next rung. It is your identity. A game of charades. Suddenly I was just me.

When COVID hit in 2020 and we were forced into remote work, I realized I had no in-between clothes. I had a closet full of suits and suiting-adjacent workwear and a handful of stretchy pants and sweaters. I had neglected the personal side of my life and just developed a facade of strong, hard-working professional.

Fast-forward to 2024 and nothing had really changed all that much. So I did what any sensible person who needed new clothes would do, I started a custom and made to measure clothing business with my husband. We are about to launch our made-to-measure offerings online and I’ve been writing over at (In)Decent Taste, our newsletter about living with style. Check it out!

In the meantime, I’ve learned a lot about creating a life I love, and I’ll be sharing that here. It’s so good. C’est si bon.

Where does that leave Europe? Still on the horizon. While we won’t be 100% pulling up roots, we will be those fabulous jet-setters who have a place in Europe where we spend half the year. We are narrowing down locations, and more on that soon. (Spoiler: most likely somewhere in Northern Italy)

Thank you for sticking with me. I’m glad to be back.