I was a corporate top producer. I was also, more than once, “redundant” — a word they use so you’ll feel like the problem instead of the pattern. I kept re-earning a seat at a table I’d stopped wanting.
The unraveling wasn’t dramatic. It was a slow, quiet recognition that I was successful by every metric that wasn’t mine. That the woman in the calendar invites was someone I’d built to survive, not someone I’d chosen.
So I’m leaving. Literally — to Portugal’s Silver Coast, with my grandson Garion (he calls me Beppa) and a dog named Peanut. And metaphorically — out of the story that said the life was supposed to feel like this.
I’m not writing to you from arrival. I’m about a year ahead of where you might be standing — close enough to still remember the fear, far enough to tell you the ground holds.
She Left Anyway is the record of that choice, and an invitation to make your own.