The number echoed inside the quiet cabin of my Lexus as I drove along the rain washed streets of Seattle on a gray October afternoon. Eighteen million dollars represented the value of the company I had spent thirty two relentless years building from nothing.
It meant endless nights fixing software crashes while reviewing property ledgers. It meant missing my daughter’s school games because emergency repairs at one of my commercial buildings demanded my attention.
Three decades earlier I had borrowed against my first small apartment and opened a property management firm above a laundromat. An hour earlier I had signed the final documents that transferred that business to a national investment group.
The wire transfer had already been scheduled. The negotiations were finished and the struggle that defined most of my adult life had finally ended.
My fingers trembled on the leather steering wheel because I could hardly wait to tell my husband Robert. For years we talked about the day when work would stop controlling every hour of our lives.
We dreamed about traveling through New Zealand together. We talked about paying off our daughter Lauren’s law school debt in one single payment.