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eNewsletter - 3rd Quarter 2010

Who Defines Irreplaceable?

By Leslie DiLeo, CMP
Two weeks into June, my boss called me into his office. "Let's jump right into it," he said. (After a short preface, he continued.) "As of July 1, the new fiscal year, we are eliminating the position of Director of Conferences." Oh -- the position that I had held for the the last three years. I wasn't shocked (and said so), as the plan at the American Montessori Society was to move to one conference per year in 2011. I felt sad, proud, thankfully calm, and grateful for the chance I'd had to work with a cross-departmental team to plan and execute 6 conferences. Back at my desk, I also felt a surprising sense of relief: when change is in the air but not defined, the tension is hard to take. Once the lightning strikes, you can assess the damage -- and your options.

My coworkers, colleagues and friends have been incredibly helpful and supportive. And something that one of my oldest friends (from high school) said keeps coming back to me. When I told him I had lost my job, he said, "well, you have to make yourself irreplaceable." Ouch. He may as well have said, "you didn't make yourself irreplaceable." This begs the question: what is one's responsibility to push oneself beyond achievement, beyond success? Who defines what "irreplaceable" looks like?

I had some time to think about this. I began putting my resume together and looking ahead to a key summer activity that I had planned with my cousin and my sister - a half-marathon in the Black Hills of western South Dakota, August 15. Except for whitewater rafting which allows for a tight, figure boosting wetsuit, my formal athletic pursuits had been zero. After working with a trainer for a year and moving into a 5th floor walk-up apartment gave me the cockiness to sign up for the Leading Ladies Marathon/Half Marathon. It didn't hurt that this ladies-only event was billed as a race "for women of all ages and fitness levels. Walkers welcomed!" And -- it turned out that a world-wide motorcycle rally attracting well over 500,000 bikers in Sturgis, SD would coincide with our event in Spearfish Canyon. Wow! Without a wetsuit enhanced silhouette, I would have to rely on grey leggings and pink running shoes to captivate a muscled-mustacheoed-tattooed Harley riding prince charming. My blonde cousin, the actual runner, set me straight. "You need to focus. And besides -- most of the bikers come with their old ladies."

Three a.m. on race day came fast. My cousin, sister and I were staying in a bed and breakfast right on a bubbling stream. While atmospheric (part Little House on the Prairie, part Blair Witch project), it was also very cold at around 45 degrees thanks to a freak summer cold snap. We picked our way through pitch black, silent streets, through a park and onto a bus that took us 14 miles up Spearfish Canyon to the beginning of the race. Nearly 300 women participated in the event. The all downhill course would be open for 7 hours--long enough to accommodate the slowest marathon runners -- or half marathon walkers. The race began, and I turned to my sister who was iPODed and head-phoned up, and said, "now listen, you don't have to stay with me." "Ok!" she replied, and took off, faster than I have seen her move outside the opening of the new Crate and Barrel 2 store in her Atlanta neighborhood.

As the sun came up over the lush, tree and rock covered hills, I inhaled and felt grateful to be in such a beautiful, fresh place--especially after the hot New York summer. I walked briskly, covering 5 miles easily. At mile 6, the 80-year old snack and water station volunteer let me rest in his chair for thirty minutes. As I slowly continued on to mile ten, I thought about my grandparents (who had lived in Yankton, South Dakota before their respective deaths into their nineties.) I was very close to them, and had made an extra effort to travel to see them at least once a year from New York. I thought about my fitness goals, and how, for the first time in my life, I had committed to an exercise plan and stuck to it for a year. I thought about my new apartment, and how, after saying for 12 years that I wanted to live without a roommate, I had finally moved into my own place. I thought about the dating stories I had from Match.com, Craig's List and OK Cupid. True, I hadn't found true love, but telling the stories to my appreciative friends was very gratifying. At mile 10, worn out, with 3.2 more miles ahead of me, I couldn't do too much more than put one foot in front of the other. I thought about being jobless in a slow economy, along with many worthy competitors. What if I never found another good job? What if I had to work at the new Shake Shack in my neighborhood? What if I was so poor, like Madonna in her early years, that I to steal frozen custard and they fired me and had me arrested? Is it true that the incarcerated can't have dental floss because one might braid it into escape rope? What if? What if? I had to stop--and just breathe. I took my shoes and socks off and stood on the side of the road and looked up at the crystal blue sky. I had come a long way to be here, in one of the most serene places on earth. I was lucky. I breathed. I backed away Shake Shack and prison, and returned to Spearfish Canyon -- came back to reality. I had extensive experience in my field, and had developed an amazing network of colleagues as well as some dear, dear friends. I would bounce back from my employment challenge the same way I would finish the grueling last three miles: one step at a time.

I crossed the finish line in a blistering time of 6 hours and 15 minutes -- a full 45 minutes before they closed the course: dead last. But I may as well have been first for the level of satisfaction and pride that I felt in pushing myself beyond the norm. And that is a feeling that is irreplaceable.