On life

We got married young by today’s standards (20 and 22) and had our youngest child when she was barely 21.

Up until we knew we were right for each other in the “rest of our lives way”, she had loose, somewhat ambiguous career ambitions. Mostly out of necessity. But even before we got married, she was sure she wanted to be a full-time Mom.

This required us to start working on my career immediately. Together, we worked hard to build a path that would allow me to be able to support the lifestyle we chose. We knew it would be hard, and she was a bigger driver of my initial success than I was. One of our very first purchases as a couple was a new computer and $300 worth of Study materials for me, when $300 was A LOT of money for us (it was also our very first Amazon purchase, in the spring of 1998). She was the one who pushed for me to get into Linux before anyone had even heard of it. She pushed me to follow my deep love of first principles, even when I had no idea how.

Her intuition proved perfect timing, because the following year, the dot-com era came to the fore.

As the kids grew up and my career took off, she alternated between homeschooling and facilitating their transition to private school when we could afford it. Eventually, rounding out both kids’ high school as a full-time homeschool mom.

Now that we’re empty nesters, she finds herself sometimes in an uncomfortable position. You see, a lot of people don’t like that she doesn’t have a career now. Even people who should be close to us feel she should have a career. But she still doesn’t really want one. And some people she her as something other than a"successful woman."

I’m late in my career. My gray is coming faster than hers, and as empty nesters, we find ourselves saying, “What’s next?”

This is an amazing “problem” to have, one that she is handling better than I am.

She’s painting, writing, gardening, bothering the snot out of the kids (who are doing SO GREAT), freeze-drying everything in sight, reading, hiking, and more. It’s exactly the sort of thing she wants, even through the occasional subtle ridicule of others.

I, on the other hand, am now searching for meaning I’ve not found in my career. Thousands and thousands of hours that more often than not feel hollow. I’m not saying I haven’t had fun along the way; I have. But the parts of my life that are important have NOTHING to do with my career success or money. My family is important. My friends are important. Time to explore the world is important. My career is none of those things.

She gets to live the important parts every day. Wife, mother, and caregiver.

WE earned her freedom to do that. Together.

So I’m working to transition my career to something that supports the important parts, while having meaning to people. I don’t care if it’s meaningful to thousands of people or two, but it will be helpful and have purpose.

I wish I had started this 30 years ago, but you can only go forward from where you are.

My first step… paying more attention to the way my wife lives and doing more of that.