one chapter closes; another one begins

i am now on day 7 of this new chapter called unemployment aka stay at home mom aka lady of leisure.

let's do a quick recap of my last chapter with some background:

i was employed at a private retail company where i started over 7 years ago as a manager. i had always been very ambitious and wanted to be on the fast track. i had the same amazing manager for the first 6 years who always found a way to get the best out of me and our team. after he left at the end of 2012, i was promoted to vice president. in the last year since becoming vice president, life had been anything but fun. work was insane: we were extremely understaffed, were given additional responsibilities (without any being taken away) and had no tools, resources or systems to do anything well.

it was a very imbalanced life:
1 - i was working on average 65 hours a week
2 - we had so many meetings that i wouldn't have time for lunch at least 2 days out of the week
3 - with the stress and lack of time to eat: i went down 3 pant sizes!

that doesn't even describe the emotional strain on my personal life or the imbalance in our home. on weeknights, i would come home and steve and aaron would already be done eating dinner. on weekends, steve would take aaron to the park and i would be at home working. i never got around to doing any housework because i always had work to do. 

needless to say, it was not sustainable. i was struggling to find the right answer. just say no to the executives to all their projects / requests? quit and take a break? look for a new job? well, it was answered for me because i got LAID OFF.

it came as a complete SHOCK (to me and to everyone in the company). we had some changes in our leadership team and the new COO was not a fan of mine. it was a hit to my pride. i thought, how could someone possibly say i was not successful when i've built 7 years of solid results and teams, credibility and amazing working relationships in the company? how could this possibly happen to me? i became the 10th VP to leave the company in the current year (that's north of 40% turnover). 

many will say, it's par for the course when new leaders come into the company. sure, if they want to make me a scapegoat, fine. however, i feel for my team that is still there and all my other colleagues that i've developed great relationships with. 

this entry is long enough already so i'll end it here; more to come on what are my next steps...

*the artwork is buttefly by aldo luongo. my colleague gave me a bottle of wine w/ the this painting and i just fell in love with it! it's a great symbol of a woman flying to her freedom. =)