Adaptability :Part One: Losing My Business

You know how there are always two sides to every coin and every person? Well, here I am as a great example: I really don't like change. I like my routines. I like counting on something to happen when it's supposed to. I like being in harmony with my body's rhythms. I like precision. I like being organized and even being on a schedule. That's how I like to function. Too bad life isn't like that.
I've lost my business, my home, most of my money and my easy-come, easy-go way with spending. And yet, I've been able to adapt to everything that has happened to me along the way. Both on the surface and on a more profound level. And my adaptability actually is and was no surprise to me. I always knew I was capable of rising above, or finding ways of coping and generally being adaptable to what life was throwing at me.

But there are conditions and consequences to my reconciling with change. The condition is time. I need time to get used to the idea. Not too much time, but enough to let the idea penetrate, and to figure out the upside of what's about to change. The consequence of not having enough time is fear and fatigue. Fear of the unknown followed by immense fatigue that takes its tolls for up to 3 days after the trauma.

Outside of natural disasters and immediate death, almost all traumatic events have a 'time' element involved. I didn't lose anything that I didn't have the opportunity to think, mull over, and to some degree, come to terms with, in advance. Not my business, home, money or even my lifestyle.

It's been 4 years since I lost my business: I was the owner of a private Montessori school. At its peak we had 150 children. 25 years of running a growing business is a long time. In the early years, I did virtually everything: from the advertising and marketing to teaching; from the basic accounting to painting walls. I had a staff of 25 (way too many people on the payroll) and I had a vice principal/executive secretary for 12 years, who eventually stole over $100,000 from the school (me) from 1998-2001. I will never forget the day she was found out: 9/11, just before the explosions.

For the last 17 years of the school's history, we were in a rented property. With extra classrooms and a gymnasium that were added on, we had almost 30,000 square feet on 10 acres of manicured lawns. It was a piece of Paradise, situated in the north end of the city, down a long private road, a long way from any traffic.

As heaven-made as all this was, it wasn't mine. First the landlord gave me a 10 year lease; then a 5 year lease, and then year to year after that. He planned to develop the whole package (100 acres) into multi-residential homes. At a certain point, I felt I was blind-sided by his conversations about the lease being extended. But truthfully, I guess I wasn't really listening.

I did start the search for a new place at some point, but here again, with hindsight, I recognize that I just didn't have the financial understanding that I needed, to make any kind of a decision. And so, in a nutshell, it all began to unravel, and in the process, I convinced myself that 25 years was a great milestone to have reached, and announced to the shock of the enrollment that I was closing the school doors for good at the end of the 2004 school year.

On one hand, I can't believe now, how little I really thought this through, or how drastically this would change our life. But, on the other hand, I'm not a stupid woman. I knew I was burned out; I remember leaving my school in the charge of my vice principal too many times while I went off to play golf. And whenever I felt guilty, there was always someone to help me rationalize my actions: " Hey, you've worked hard and long to get to this place. You've earned the right to play golf." I knew I wasn't really participating anymore in the doings of the school. I appointed various teachers to handle this or that. I allowed my vice principal to deal with parents instead of me. And I escaped.

So when the end was near, although I thought I had fought long and hard enough to try and save it, I guess I really didn't. I let myself lose my school. My business. My career. My identity. My safe and secure financial net.

Yes, over the years, I invested money in RRSP's ( Registered Retirement Plan), similar to the American 401K, but it wasn't nearly enough, and of course its untouchable before retirement, unless you're willing to pay a penalty.

I had just bought my beautiful first home one year earlier. We took possession in the third week of June 2003, and by August, my contractor sued me, the school and my bank, all on the same day! The whole thing was a convoluted mess that perhaps I"ll talk about in some other post, but for now, the shock value of being hit with a triple lawsuit sent me into a tailspin of action and re-action, that led to devastating consequences.

My husband and I suffered terribly during that time, lashing out at each other emotionally. Our money was dwindling away, and I had to dip into my savings to pay some of the legal fees. There is still a large amount owing 4 years later, which will probably never be paid. We were int debt, and the marriage was crumbling.. When you cast a stone upon the waters, beware of the ripples that go on and on.

One unforeseen ripple was the school. Beyond feeling generally burned out, the lawsuit consumed me. I couldn't sleep; I actually lost 20 pounds out of sheer fear. My stomach was raw and I couldn't eat at all. I couldn't and didn't want to concentrate on the school. I was a mess.
The lawsuit continued for 3 years, way past the school's demise. It was a constant thorn in my heart. Everything had been ruined in its wake and there was still more devastation to come.

What kills me today, and ever since this occurred, is the realization that none of what happened needed to happen. The triple lawsuit arrived on a Friday, I remember, early morning. Had I taken the week-end to calm myself down, come to my senses, put my ego on the shelf and think straight, I would have made a trip to the contractor's home, and talked it out until we resolved it.
But I was a maniac, filled with anger, indignation, fear, humiliation and vengeance. This lawsuit was precipitated by a lot of mis dealings between the contractor and myself. So, instead, we called the most expensive lawyer we could find (I still had my school, didn't I???) that very day, and put things in motion with counter notices, etc. In so doing,we sealed our fate.

The fact that we hung onto the house for 3 more years is ridiculous now in hindsight. But my heart and soul and money were in that house. And besides, I had a large line of credit that the bank was only too happy to give me when we took out the mortgage. So what if I had just lost my financial backbone. We were safe....

Did I mention that my husband never wanted the house, and never liked the house. Because the previous owner was a widow, and his wife had died in that house, my husband thought the house was sad, and not the place for us. Not exactly the most substantial reason to turn down a great price, so I didn't. Things began to happen in 3 month cycles: the renovations went on for 3 months prior to moving in; we lived there busily for the next 3 months, and then came the lawsuit. Almost one year later to the day, the school was finished for good.

I must have been in a state of suspended animation for the next couple of months, because I remember that I played golf a lot. By late Fall,2004, I was determined to start being self-employed. My first idea was Ebay: I had a ton of clothing and jewelery that I knew I could sell, and I did make some money,but more like pocket money. Then I decided that I wanted to create a food product and sell it. So I spent the next few months creating a tomato product. It was delicious. I worked out the finances, designed the label, contacted suppliers, and even had my first appointment with a high-end grocer in the heart of the city. But when all was said and done, it was never going to pay off. Between making the product, filling the bottles, pasting the labels, delivering the product, buying and storing the supplies and whatever else would need to
be done, I could never make it financially feasible.

Time was marching on, and my husband slowly but surely, began to involve me in his home-based work: he was an aerospace engineer in Italy, and over the years, had amassed an impressive collection of aircraft manuals. He wanted to sell them on Ebay, and needed me to be involved. Just up my alley: a school administrator and aviation. What a match.

So we began the journey, ever so slowly and begrudgingly on my part; ever so controlling and persistent on his part. We fought and screamed at each other constantly. My husband, no matter what he thinks of himself, is not a great teacher. He doesn't have the patience to explain things simply and logically. And so we had a lot of issues to overcome. It took such a long time for things to start gelling for us on so many levels. And in the meantime, we had the bills to deal with, and they were killing us.

When selling the house finally became the topic of the day, the writing was pretty much on the wall, and we really had little recourse. You know, as I recall now, I believe I always knew the house would be our saving grace in those 3 years, and when push came to shove, I would be ready. See how time can soften the blow?