One of the first decisions to make when starting a website is what your domain name will be. In my case, it is smartypantslifetime.com which has significant meaning on several levels.
Smarty Pants
My husband, Pat, is the source of this phrase. He’s a pretty funny guy who likes to tease everyone around him. Sometimes I think he is lucky people keep being his friend. While he is poking fun, it’s always regarding something the individual must admit is true about themselves. My mother and father are both very intelligent, curious people who take action. My father’s career path saw him start teaching at a young age, progress to a vice principal, become a principal, and eventually retire as the well respected administrator of a large, complex, stressful school. My mother ran the Histology lab at the hospital until she had children, after which she was a wonderfully involved parent to my brother and me.
We are all voracious readers. I could read on my own before I started kindergarten. Throughout my education, Mom read each assigned novel along with me and helped with homework. Dad’s outgoing personality and “let’s fix it” attitude made him known throughout the educational community.
Expectations of my performance were high. By the end of grade 2, my potential had been noticed by the school. From grades 3 through 6, I was one of eight students who were put in the higher grade of a split grade class – meaning we were the grade 3 of a 2/3 class, grade 4 of a 3/4 class etc. There were special activities available to us when we had the class work complete. I went through a series of intelligence tests, including the WISC-R, and was identified as gifted (an IQ over 135.) This put me on the “short bus” to an out-of-area school for special education in grades 7 & 8.
I was a smart, confident kid who loved to learn. In the eyes of less ambitious students, like Pat, I was a “keener” which it turns out is a Canadian-ism meaning “a person who is extremely eager, zealous, or enthusiastic.” He admits he would have liked to sit beside me in class so he could copy my work. Good thing we went to different high schools.
Lately, when I gave in to the AMAZING LIMITED TIME 70% OFF offer from The Great Courses and bought web access to several, Pat named the shortcut link on his computer “Smarty Pants.” And here we are.
Life & Time & Lifetime
For the first 5 years of my career, I put a lot of pressure on myself to excel at work. Early on, Pat and I were able to commute into Toronto together. He dropped me off at a subway station, drove on to his job and I rode the train to mine. We’d strategically meet up at the end of the day, often with one or the other needing a few extra minutes due to work or traffic. By the weekend, neither of us had the energy or desire to do much other than rest or visit our family. Life was a grind. Looking back, we recognize how poorly we ate and how we made no time for exercise other than walking/hiking with Jamie our Bernese Mountain Dog.
One day in Y2K (that’s 2000 for those of you who didn’t live through the uncertainty of what would happen when we hit midnight on December 31, 1999) Pat and I were driving home after work. As we got close to the house, he said “Do you know that you complain about your day nearly all the way home? Why don’t you just quit?” Not surprisingly, this coincided with the moment I saw a picture of myself and realized it wasn’t my wardrobe that was mysteriously shrinking. Life needed to change.
By the time I turned 30, I was driving myself to a job I enjoyed, much closer to home. Pat still had over an hour each way through ridiculous traffic, but now by himself. At that point in my life, I felt the pressure to advance lessen. I realized that as a young professional, I had expected to be a vice president immediately. I was amazing – why didn’t everyone see that and reward me for it? Yet work-life balance was becoming more important than career advancement. We started eating better, joined a gym, worked out together and paddled on a Dragon Boat team that eventually earned its way to an international competition.
Life became more about living and less about working. Thankfully, people did recognize my value and opportunity knocked. My boss at the time said “What do you think about moving to New England?” I shrugged and said “Sure!” The first vision in my mind was that ubiquitous white church with a steeple that seems to exist on Main St. in every town.
In 2008, right before the bubble burst, we bought a house in Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, five miles from my new office. Pat’s company let him start working from home. Our lives were completely transformed! Until then, we hadn’t realized what a toll commuting took on our souls. Freeways became roads of freedom and exploration. It can take you days to drive across one province in Canada, during which you’ll see mostly wilderness. In New England, drive just one hour in any direction and you will find yourself gazing at the ocean, climbing a mountain, relaxing on a beach, discovering an historic town settled in the 1600’s, getting lost in a forest, or strolling through a beautiful city. It seemed that each Monday when someone at work would ask “What did you do this weekend?” I always had an adventure to recount. Often the response was “Wow, I’ve lived here all my life and have never been there.” We made wonderful friends who were welcoming and gracious. They helped us adjust to a new place where we had no support system. Life was amazing and time was abundant. I used some of that time to complete a Master’s of Organizational Leadership degree.
As I turned 40, clarity set in. I was a fine wine – improving with age. Pat discovered CrossFit and I jumped on the wagon too. Our eyes were opened to the wonders of functional training and clean eating. We traveled internationally. We would have stayed in New England forever, but Mother Nature made the decision to relocate for us.
I cast a job search net over multiple southern zip codes. It took a few months, but during our trip to Grand Cayman, I checked email and a company in Atlanta, GA had my job description posted. Being flown in for interviews was really neat! They liked me and I liked them. A frenzied period of travel, house selling, new home finding, and learning a whole new industry ensued. We joined a CrossFit family where we actually worked out together, instead of at separate gyms. The South welcomed us and life got even better.
Three years ago, we sold our house and bought a condo. Here is where “time and lifetime” come to the forefront. The condo is directly across the street from my office building. For those who don’t know, Atlanta has some of the worst traffic anywhere in the United States. We speak in terms of travel time, not distance. It’s never “From home to Chamblee? Oh, that’s only 12 miles.” Rather it’s “From home to Chamblee? That’s a 25-minute drive if traffic isn’t too bad.” Many people have commutes over one hour each way every day. Mine is less than 5 minutes, on foot. Time saved and stress avoided.
Downsizing from way-more-space-than-we-needed to a 2 bed/2 bath first-floor unit moved us significantly closer to our dream of early retirement. Unlike most people in their late 40’s, we were mortgage and debt-free. A second, more leisurely, phase of our lifetime together was within reach. As of February 5, 2021, I’m thrilled to have accomplished that goal. Our time is our own and I’m in the midst of sketching out my next BHAG – Big Hairy Aggressive Goal – relocation to Alicante, Spain!
I’m a woman who is extraordinarily blessed, has made some good choices along the way, and looks forward to continuing her SmartyPants Lifetime for many years to come. You’re invited along for the ride!