People, I do not know if you have ever had to leave a job after a significant amount of time but it is pretty hard.
I have been with my current employer for 7 years. Given that I only graduated from college 9 years ago, one could say that the majority of my professional career has been at this one place.
As I prepare for this big move, one of the things I have to do is clean out my office. I am not quite to that point yet, but I am trying to clean out old emails and documents from my computer (you know to hide all of the non-work related stuff I have NOT been doing).
As I went about cleaning out my sent emails a weird thing began to unfold.
First of all, I have to say that I.T. would KILL ME if they knew that I have 12,559sent emails in my outbox. More accurately they would tie me to a chair and make stare at the “blue screen of death” while they make “stupid average user” jokes about me like “hey that’s an I D 10 T error. (that is how computer geeks talk, I know I am married to one… hi Kevie!).
I know, I know. It is totally lame that I have so many sent emails in my outbox. In my defense, I am lazy….
Anyhow, as I went about cleaning them up today I came across some interesting emotional hurdles.
First off, there are emails sent to people in that outbox that have since passed away. There are emails in there to people, whom for whatever reason, are no longer a part of my life. It made me realize that a lot has happened in the 7 years since I accepted this job.
One particular set of emails - occurring with one person over a multi- year period - were particularly jarring to my psyche. This person was once family. He was once one of my best friends and he was once the Uncle to my child, whom he adored. However, life happens and he is no longer in the picture. As I read the emails and I could remember what it was like to talk to him, to be so familiar with him I couldn’t help but cringe. He would be a stranger to me today if I saw him on the street. Clearly, I still have grief over this issue and these emails brought this to light.
How do you let someone go from your life that was a part of it for so long? I think every photo album in our house has pictures of him. Am I supposed to take them all out? Am I supposed to let him be the stranger that he wishes to be?
The question however, that truly plagues me is, how well did I really know him in the first place, if he now is totally fine calling me a stranger? I wish I could ask him how he does it. How does he push all of those years and memories aside? He was there when my son was born. He was there when Kevin and I lost our first baby to miscarriage. He was in the house when Kevin’s mom passed away from cancer. We were there for him, we chose him, when the going got tough in our family. And now he desires to be just a ghost in our past.
Life takes some crazy turns. This one I never expected. As I pushed the button and deleted all of the emails, taking the time to only read a few, I realized this move is truly cleansing.
We are leaving a whole host of good memories behind here in the Valley but there are some moments, some pieces frozen in my mind that I wish to walk away from with a fresh start.