After 3-1/2 years of unplanned early retirement, and just over a week from the one-year anniversary of your death, tomorrow I start a new job as the Public Works Director for our local small town of Hilliard, FL.
We made a major lifestyle change with our family moving here from Jacksonville in June 2005. We planned and implemented, with our own blood, sweat, and tears, many improvement projects at our little farm over the years; and we sunk roots and invested our lives into this community and rural lifestyle. We raised our three girls here and watched the two oldest move away.
With Sydney still here, we fostered and then adopted Jenna - because three girls just weren’t enough! You started and led a horse-focused 4-H club here for several years and then you started your own self-employed business and named it “Jennifer’s Mobile Horsemanship Training”. Then, you got sick and 15 months later we spread your ashes under the trees and special places here at the farm. This is home.
This job is a blessing in that it will help financially allow me to stay here and work in a meaningful job that literally touches the lives of every single person in the community. I feel like it is an opportunity to invest myself, my skills, and my experience in one last role for the next few years and close out my career with something to look back on and feel good about.
Now, after almost a year since you have been gone, I also think it’s good for me to get back into the discipline of a schedule and routine that doesn’t revolve around just me. It’s time for me to leave the bubble of grief and uncertain retirement and re-engage with the real world.
I find that I am a bit nervous and apprehensive about taking this step. Do I still have what it takes to operate and succeed as a manager and leader in the workplace? This represents the third time I have started over in a new job in my 34-year professional career. Change is hard for me, but it is also where growth occurs. I am adjusting to life without you; and perhaps this is an important step in the process. I think you would approve of and be proud of me for taking this on. Wish me luck!
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