Moving would be hard. It would cost me two years of momentum at minimum.
It would not erase my career.
Those are two different facts and I needed both of them before I could say anything.
That Night, I Put My Notes in Front of Him
Actual notes. Four pages, handwritten, on hotel stationery.
“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it together. Here are my terms.”
The Terms
“One. We don’t move until Olive finishes the school year. Not a week before.”
“Agreed.”
“Two. I finish every event I’ve already booked. All of them, including the Kaplan wedding in August.”
“Agreed.”
“Three. We budget for rebuilding my business. An actual number, in writing, and I decide how that transition happens.”
“Agreed.”
And the Last Two
“Four. Your schedule stays what you negotiated. Every piece of it, including the Fridays. If they start eroding it in month three, that’s a conversation, not something you absorb quietly until I find out at a dinner.”
