Today was my last day of work. Congratulate me-- I'm 20 years old and I managed to spend 8 months as an intern at a non-profit, and live to tell about it.
The last day of work is always really weird. It's about about tying up loose ends and making lists of unfinished tasks that you need other people to complete for you and packing up the random assortment of things your collected at your desk. For instance, here's what I ended up bringing home today:
1. A Fresh Air teddy bear
2. Spiedie Sauce (if you know what this is, you get a million bucks!)
3. Two pairs of shoes
4. Nalgene
5. A "Fresh Air" bracelet
6. Advil
7. A hair clip
8. A folder with my resume and some receipts
9. My reimbursement check
For the rest of the day, I went through my outlook contacts and wrote down the names and emails of everyone I might ever want to contact again, and emailed a whole slew of people thanking them for the good times. I had sushi for lunch and I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a supervisor for another organization I'm part of. And then I had a good-bye ice-cream cake and almost cried.
That was the weird part-- I got choked up. After 3 weeks of being miserable getting out of bed every morning and spending my days searching for new jobs, I realized that I am going to have to mourn the loss of this job from my life.
I can never figure out why I get sad at times like those-- why freeing myself from a tedious obligation and moving on to bigger and better is somehow always painful. I don't think I was sad about leaving the great friends I have made or the children who once upon a time "needed me" so much.
The older I get and the more times I choke back these tears, the more I realize how unexpectedly horrible change can be. When you pull into Grand Central station at least 6 times a week for 8 months, it's scary to think about not being there anymore. What will happen to Grand Central if I am not there twice a day? What will the little man at the convenient store do without my hello?
Perhaps change is something to mourn: something to feel sad for as it steals the familiar from your everyday life, as it takes away a part of who you are used to being. Perhaps we must mourn change in the same way we mourn a death or a break-up: like the death of a lifestyle or pattern.
And maybe I are lucky that my reaction to change is always be this painfully nostalgic. As moments graduate from present to past, we all need something to remind us not to take anything for granted.
posted by iliza @ 9:52 PM
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