Retirement!

When we came to Italy, it was under the pretence that I would be returning to work on the 1st of August as this is the deal that I negotiated with my company when we sold it two years ago. Much has changed in both my life and with my former company while we have been away. While in Los Angeles for the holidays, I had an opportunity to dig a bit deeper into the direction of the company with my partner and best friend Rich and felt that a more in depth understanding about the goals of the companies current owners was necessary.

In mid January, I flew on a marathon business trip to Washington DC to have an eight hour meeting with the partners of our parent company as well as my founding partners Rich and Steve. Following the meeting, I immediately jumped back on a plane to flew back to Italy through Paris (Long Commute!)

At the meeting I realized that the fulfillment of the final eight months of my contract (Which expired on March 31st of 2009) is all that I would be interested in participating in. Upon informing the parent company that I had no intentions of renewing past the contract expiration, our discussions shifted to ending my contract immediately. In mid March, we finalized the details of my contract termination and as of the time of this writing, I am officially retired, for now that is!

I have gone through a range of emotions during the past two months of negotiations, and when the details were finally agreed upon, a wave of panic and loneliness hit me. I think that its easy to take for granted how much our career IS our identity and not having a job can feel a bit scary. The most difficult part was breaking the news to all of my colleagues and struggling with the guilt of feeling like I was abandoning them. In the end, it was what was best for both me personally and the company as a whole as my return for only eight months would have been very disruptive to the culture.

Now that things have started to really sink in, I actually am excited about the prospect of returning home and not having any obligations for a while. It will give me the ability to continue to spend a lot of time with Anna and kids, something that I have grown quite used to over the past eight months. I am also excited that I will have time to catch up with so many of my friends and family who I have not seen in quite a while.

Where it all will lead and what challenge is next on the horizon for me is something that I try not to think about as there will be time for that in the future. Now its simply time to enjoy the remaining time we have in this wonderful country and create as many memories as we can.