Tami Rossi: Has new perspective

Tami Rossi speaks quickly this afternoon as she perches at an elegant table at the Davenport Hotel and lists her values to life coach ReBecca Roedl.

She wears a black and pink blocked sweater, deep red polished fingernails, a diamond ring. Her chin-length bob shines with golden highlights. She’s friendly and energetic.

Today she’s rushed into the hotel mezzanine for a carefully scheduled hour with Roedl. The minutes tick away. Soon she must hop back in the car to pick up 15-year-old Rachel from Ferris High School.

Rossi’s a food scientist for Cyrus O’Leary Pies, working 20 to 30 hours each week developing new recipes, then zipping off to fill the rest of her days with appointments, volunteer work and precious after-school time with her two teenagers. She winds up her days exhausted, with a longer to-do list than when she started.

As the coaching begins, 46-year-old Rossi spells out her top priorities. They’re simple but rich: To raise her children to happy adulthoods. To have a stable, lasting marriage with her husband, Al.

“At the end of the day, what really matters to me is the kids and my husband,” she says. “Nothing else is really that important.”

What stands in her way? Her own perfectionism. If she’s not filling every possible minute with productive activity, all completed perfectly and punctually, she feels guilty.

Roedl presses Rossi to set a few goals for the week. She’ll buy a journal, talk to her husband about scheduling regular evenings alone, and keep a log of her time. She’ll track down her pedometer, and finally write those Christmas thank-yous.

Then she’s zipping out to race the clock to Ferris.

A couple of weeks later, Rossi bakes 250 apple and cherry tarts in her South Hill kitchen, more volunteer time. She’s a parish council member at Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church, and she’s offered to bring tarts to the new church’s dedication. The smell of brown sugar and cinnamon wafts into the room.

Already she’s made a few observations.

“My expectations for myself are totally unrealistic,” she says. “You create the image of the ideal woman who can keep house like Martha Stewart, who can carry on a conversation like Oprah Winfrey, who looks like Gwyneth Paltrow.

“You’re trying to measure up to this person who doesn’t even exist.”

The progress report: She’s gone for coffee in the evenings with her husband. She’s lost the pedometer, but she’s written the thank-yous.

Five weeks after their initial meeting, Rossi and Roedl have returned to the Davenport Hotel.

This time, Rossi relaxes into her chair. Her silver earrings shine. The conversation flows, a gentle downhill stream, this time.

She’s figured out a new perspective now. Everyone she cares about — her husband, her kids, her friends, her employer — all deserve to have a wife, mom, friend and employee who’s at her best.

“I don’t have a right to run myself ragged,” she says.

She’s rediscovered a love of antiquing and even tracked down a vintage chandelier she’s recast as a candelabra for her bathroom.

One homework assignment she’s flunked: to make some mistakes on purpose.

“I couldn’t do it,” she says. “I felt like I was letting other people down.”

But life has subtly become easier for Rossi. She’s scheduling regular dates with her husband. She’s taking time to just to shove the cat out of a patch of sunshine in the living room and sit there a few moments herself. She’s just not feeling resentful or burdened as often as she did before.

She makes plans to continue the coaching sessions on her own with Roedl.

And she lingers over her chai tea today. She’s enlisted her son to pick up Rachel after school. She’d rather stay a few moments longer to talk about how coaching has worked for her.

“I think it’s making me braver,” Rossi says. “Less afraid of what other people will think.”