Mission accomplished

The past couple of months have been a whirlwind of change for me.

At the end of March I accepted a position with a new company, ending a nearly-14 year career. I still work in insurance, but on the other side of the wall.

That change was a big deal. I had to give up the perks that came with seniority and job security. I have to learn a lot, being back on the receiving end of training after so many years of being the "expert."

I couldn't be happier.

I've known for a long time I wanted the change - but finding an opportunity that made sense wasn't easy. Where I've landed seems to be a good fit. Still - it's tough to leave a job where you didn't have to think, and take on something new where every click requires a thought.

About a month after the first day on my new job, I moved into an apartment. A week later - I closed on my house. No big deal, right? I've talked about selling for years, and I knew I wanted to leave home ownership life.

But I'd lived in that house for eleven years. I only lived in my childhood home (which was an apartment) for thirteen years - so this house was my home. It held all of my memories (good and bad) and packing that up (or in most cases, throwing it away) was tough. Few things in life are more emotional than seeing your entire adult life bagged up and left to wait for garbage day.

But it was time. For years I have promised myself that I would not turn 40 with the same job or home address.

I turn 40 in 48 days.

Mission accomplished.

Moving up

I'll admit - I was surprised by the overwhelming emotion I felt (both the amount and variety), making my move from homeowner back to apartment renter. I haven't written about it because I'm still not quite sure what I want to say.

But, here's something I know....

Today is the sort of day I am very happy not to own a house, or any of the work or responsibility one brings.

RSVP

So - I moved. I'll be talking more about that next week. In the meantime, I wanted to chat about something that's been on my mind for a while.

RSVP - Request for a response to an invitation (from French: répondez s'il vous plaît).

When people send an invitation, they usually need to know who is coming. You know, to plan food, seating, parking, entertainment, budget, etc. Sometimes a week is enough notice - sometimes it's not. Either way, if you receive an invitation that requests a response by a certain date, the polite thing to do is respond by that date. If you can't commit - then your answer is no. It is not the host's job to accommodate your unpredictable schedule.

I get multiple invites each week, primarily for events on Facebook. The other day, I received two in the mail.

Facebook events don't always have an RSVP date. But whether there is or there isn't, the process is the same:

Read the invite
Decide if I want to go
Check my calendar
     If it's open, I add the event and reply yes.
     If it's not, I reply no.

If the first event is something that can be moved, and the second one is important enough, I might make a change.

Either way, the whole process only takes about 5 minutes - 10 tops.

So there's really no good reason it should ever take weeks to reply to an event.

Unless you really don't want to go... in which case, you should just say no in the first place.