Why I’m Moving to Ohio For Another Woman

Five months ago I boarded a plane and headed to Ohio, on my way to meet my newest partner, Lori Taylor. Having recently surfaced from a ridiculously difficult year, I made a promise to my family that I wouldn’t allow our new opportunity to swallow the success we’d worked so hard to find, or consume the schedule I’d fought so hard to shrink.

I stepped from the plane into bitter cold and wondered again if I was making a mistake. Five minutes later I was shaking hands with Dave, my giant, grizzly bear of a business partner I’d been working with for a year and a half, yet was meeting in person for the first time.

Like Cindy, Dave believed in my instincts enough to eagerly absorb the risk of the unknown.

With one partner at home and another on the other side of my hotel wall, I fell asleep that night lingering through thoughts of what it would be like to meet Lori, arranging arguments in my mind; casting aside those based on fear, and herding those born in creativity to the front of the line.

Most of life’s fears are rice paper walls easily walked through.

The trip flirted with amazing and Lori was everything in person I hoped she would be. The following five months flew by in a whirlwind; our mutual dreams coalescing to create something new and magical.

But it wasn’t easy.

Chaos at work collided with chaos at home. We were losing our house while at the same time digging deeper into our dream. Work with my new team was endless and 18 month’s worth of personal projects lay fallow as I did my best to maintain momentum amid shambles of shifting projects and spinning plates.

Lori is one of the best direct marketers in the world and has personally raised over two billion dollars for the Disabled American Veterans, five dollars at a time. I eagerly sip from her bottomless well of creative energy, but Lori’s fingers, fast as they move, can’t keep pace with her brain – and even 100 or so emails exchanged between us daily only seem to highlight the fissures in our fractured alliance.

Every so often Cindy would pack my bag and drive me to the airport where I’d amble through security missing home before I’d even left the time zone. Time spent with Lori always flew too fast, while feeling like a hunk of forever. I’d sit in the car on the way to the airport, driver silent, as I felt both eager to get home and sorrow at creativity severed as it was getting started.

This last trip changed everything.

This time it was summer, and I didn’t go alone. Cindy, Max and Mia boarded the plane by my side and accompanied me to Lori’s castle in the forest. Though Lori and I still stayed up talking until two in the morning, this time conversation included Cindy and Lori’s brilliant husband Steve. Around the fourth day and the 50th awesome idea, I finally started allowing myself to wonder what it would be like to stay.

The lush green scenery, low cost of living, and remarkable tribe of wonderful people populating Lori’s life nudged us forward—intersecting goals and creative firecrackers pushed us further, but the new school looking like a wing of Hogwarts brought a weeping Cindy to a decisive YES!

For the last half year, the scrambled colors of our life’s Rubik’s Cube have slowly shifted into place; that week brought the colors closer to their final click.

Her eyes fixed on mine, Lori told me she couldn’t do everything she wanted without me. That feeling is mutual, not just with me, but with Cindy, the most significant of my life’s many partners.

We agreed on the move and felt the burn of excitement. Cindy and the children returned to California to initiate the first of our farewells while I stayed one final week to take care of business.

My dreams have clarity, purpose and infinite possibility. Everything I’ve worked so hard for, with the devotion of my family behind me, now lies at life’s fringes, grazing the edges of my fingertips and teasing me with its proximity.

I’ll miss California, but after a lifetime underneath the sunny skies that make it all too easy to dream BIG, I’m ready for a transition that will put roots in my ground and fruit on my branches.

We’ll return to California one day, but it will be minus the struggle and with all the success.

Happy Birthday, Lori. We love you dearly, and not just because you made sure Daddy’s first trip to New York was in a private jet.

See you soon.

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