Three down and one to go.
That’s how many weeks notice I gave my employer last month when I quit my job. I’m happy to finally be feeling like my time at work is coming to an end. No, not happy. Ecstatic. The air feels lighter. I feel lighter. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is shining big and bright.
I’ve continued to work every day and I’ve expected the pile of jobs on my desk to get smaller, but it doesn’t. I should be cleaning file cabinets and purging my computer. I should be writing notes and making lists for my replacement who won’t be hired until after I’ve gone. Instead, I’m still doing everyday jobs. “They do know that I’m quitting?” I jokingly ask a co-worker. Oh, that’s right. That’s WHY I’m quitting. One of the reasons anyway. The inability to do what I should be doing because there’s always something else that needs to be done.
At the end of each day, I pack another box with accumulated personal items– Christmas decorations, the dictionary I bought the year I started college, coffee mugs. I load them into my car.
I’m sad to be leaving people behind. Friends that I’ve seen almost every day for 12 years will be sorely missed by me. I’ve followed the stories of their lives the way I followed an ABC soap opera in the 80’s. My life has been so much about work that I no longer have many friends outside of work. Will I be lonely?
I feel more than a twinge of guilt because I am able to leave and others are not. It highlights for me how the choices we make effect the entire course of our lives. If I had married someone else, or gotten divorced, or bought a big house with an equally big mortgage… I might not be in a position today that allows me to quit my job and give up that income. But everyone follows their own path. And I am grateful that mine has led to this open door.
One week to go. I expect that it will be a whirlwind.
Home at the WhackyShack 