I was in my walk-in closet, a space larger than some city apartments, surrounded by the ghosts of my former life: rows of immaculate silk blouses, a phalanx of razor-sharp blazers, and a collection of designer heels that had clicked with a quiet, confident authority on the marble floors of one of the world’s top consulting firms. Today, however, I was wearing faded yoga pants and a well-worn college t-shirt, methodically sorting the entire collection into three distinct piles: Keep, Store, and Donate.
This was my one week of silence. A single, seven-day buffer between the relentless, soul-crushing pace of my old job and the impending, and far more complex, challenge of my new one.
My husband, Robert, had no idea.
To Robert, I was just “Anna, the management consultant,” a job title he both bragged about at dinner parties (“My wife is a real shark, a killer in the boardroom”) and secretly, deeply resented. Robert was the Head of Sales at a major tech corporation, a man whose ego was as inflated as his expense account. He was handsome, charming in a predatory, salesman sort of way, and pathologically insecure that my salary, my bonus, and my stock options all eclipsed his own.