Erin Callan Montella - Full Circle

A memoir of leaning in too far andthe journey back

ERIN CALLAN MONTELLA

TRIPLE M PRESS
SANIBEL, FLORIDA

Copyright 2016 by Erin Callan Montella

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Triple M Press

Sanibel, Florida

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016903814

Montella, Erin Callan

Full Circle / Erin Callan Montella

SMASHWORDS EDITION

ISBNs

978-0-9973821-0-5 (hardback)

978-0-9973821-1-2 (paperback)

978-0-9973821-2-9 (ebook)

Editing by NewYorkBookEditors.com

Cover Photo by Anthony Montella

Book Cover Design by OctagonLab.com

eBook Formatting by AuthorFriendly.com

For my husband Anthony anddaughter Maggie,

who complete mycircle.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

MY HUSBAND, ANTHONY, is a great storyteller. Thereis just something about his detailed recollection, the just barelybelievable plot line, and the buildup of drama that draws you in.Even if Ive heard the same story over and over, it gets me everytime. My brother-in-law Michael always jokes that when he hearsAnthonys stories, he feels like he has never done anything in hislife. Sometimes I feel the same way.

Somehow Anthony seems to have lived a bigger, moreexciting, and sometimes more tragic life than the rest of us.Theres some truth to that, but the real reason that his storiesare so gripping is his confidence in what the story is, how it allfits together, the themes, the interconnectedness, the moral. Iadmire and envy his abilities not only because they entertain, butbecause they enhance his life. Anthony is one of the happiest, mostoptimistic people I know because everything that happens to himgets co-opted into his story line. He makes it all fit. He doesntexperience chaos and randomness. Having spent the past severalyears of my life with Anthony, I see that for him events, both goodand bad, serve a purpose. They push him forward to finish thechapter, and each chapter builds on another to make a fully formedlife. For all of us, our stories create who we are, as we choose,in our own words.

Ive struggled with my own story. I think many of usdo. Even putting our experiences into a framework that has logicalflow is difficult, but I now know why it is critical to try to knowour stories. Knowing your story means living a considered life.Socrates had it right. An unexamined life is not really worthliving. Maybe thats a bit extreme, but without self-reflection, wenever learn from our mistakes, condemned to repeat the same patternover and over. But Ive never had Anthonys confidence whendefining my own narrative. The memories are fuzzier to me, thedrama (most of the time) much less, my own engaged consciousness afraction of what it should have been.

A few months ago I got a surprise e-mail fromShannon, an old friend from college. I was excited to hear from herand get an update about her life and kids, since we havent seeneach for more than twenty years. But even though it was a thrill tohear from her, a week after her e-mail I still hadnt written back.I was not quite sure what to say. What has really happened and whatshould I tell her? How do you condense twenty years of your lifeinto an e-mail? What is my story?

Even if the critical themes of my life experiencehad not been clear to me, what others believe my story to be hasbeen told based on one single and distinctive fact: I was chieffinancial officer of Lehman Brothers for six months straddling 2007into 2008. A top executive during the last year of the existence ofone of the oldest investment banks prior to its bankruptcy, whichsent the global financial system into a tailspin. I am one of manyplayers in the greater drama of the financial crisis whose personahas been crafted from wisps of facts. I find it almost impossibleto read about that version of myself. The character in that play.It feels like she has nothing to do with me. If I have troubleknowing my story, how could anyone else possibly know it who hasspent a fraction of the time on the question?

I ultimately ended up writing back to Shannon onemorning soon after those thoughts rattled around my head, becausein the last year something has changed. Despite more thanforty-seven years of walking around in a well-established haze, Iam starting to appreciate that events in my life have not beenpurely random and how I choose to look at them and relate them isthe key to understanding my story.

In 2011, I started to try to write something aboutmy life experiences. It seemed that there must be something worthsharing. What was it really? I couldnt quite figure it out.Anthony kept encouraging me to write stories as they occurred tome. After some time he thought I might weave them into some wholecloth. At worst, the exercise would be great therapy, forcingmyself into a deeper consideration of all that happened, especiallythe final year of my career. I wrote things down in fits and startsfor a few years with no real rhyme or reason. There were no Ahamoments. In early March of 2013, though, I felt an overwhelmingneed to respond to press I was reading about Sheryl Sandbergssoon-to-be-released book Lean In. All of a sudden itseemed important to me to alert women to the possible hazards ofdevoting your entire story to your career. I was a case study inletting your career dominate your life, and it wasnt such a prettypicture. I felt so strongly that I decided to share some vulnerableinformation about myself and to step out into the public spotlightI had actively avoided for years. I sat down to write for aboutforty-five minutes and sent the short piece into the New YorkTimes Op-Ed mailbox. And there it was, I had a story. It snuckup on me. I am not sure I ever put things so bluntly in casualconversation as I did in the Op-Ed piece. It felt good; it feltright.

I will admit it also scared me to death becausethere was such an overwhelming response to what I had written and Ihad guarded my privacy so carefully for years. That Monday morning,after the Sunday Op-Ed appeared, I was bombarded with phone calls,faxes, and e-mails. Many of the inquiries were from the media withinterview requests and speaking invitations. There were also callsand e-mails from ordinary people thanking me for writing about mystory and explaining how they related to the message. To say I wascompletely unprepared for such a dramatic reaction is to put itmildly. I had not anticipated putting myself back into the publiceye by way of a few paragraphs in the