Reaching the end of what I’ve worked so long to build. I can’t really describe in one word what it is I’m feeling; there are so many parts. Regret for leaving behind so many things that I take pleasure in. Wide-eyed denial of the impending doom of being illiterate and unable to communicate. Excitement about putting an end to what I’ve considered to be the most difficult fulfilling destructive stable phases of my life. Fear about my grandmother and perhaps never seeing her again. Guilt for abandoning those that depend on me.
One of the fascinating things is the excitement that everyone expresses for me. I wonder if that’s what people would really choose if they were in my shoes. Because I know that if the stars hadn’t aligned in the way they did several months ago – the last rejection email from Harvard, getting berated in a meeting by my VP, getting berated in another meeting by my director, driving the same street every weekend and realizing it made me tired, seeing people from my high school and not wanting to even though they were actually pretty nice back then, feeling that I’ve never been lost in my life and suddenly wanting to see what it felt like – I’d still be bleeping into the lobby every morning, saying hi to Alan the receptionist, and trying to walk quietly past my director’s office because I’m the usual 30-45 minutes late. I’d still be sitting down at my desk, turning on the computer, checking voicemail. I’d still have voicemail. I’d listen to my iPod with the volume on low so I could hear my phone ringing, my colleagues coming up behind me to talk about the delivery slide on our newest product. I’d decide each day what to get for lunch. Are we feeling a salad today or possibly a burrito? Does the weather suck? Do my feet hurt?
One of the frightening things to me is that I didn’t feel suffocated. It was just what I did every day. It afforded me my own condo at 26, nice things to fill it with, and occasional travel to anthropologically fascinating places such as Hickory, NC, and Harrisburg, PA. And, my friends, let’s be truthful, sometimes those things count. Enough to distract for a while, at least. Sometimes you check into a hotel paid for by the company and are pleasantly surprised by its grandiosity. Sometimes you think about your job and your life and your work conversations, your friends that you like at work and the funny times you’ve had, and it makes it okay. You make each morning manageable, then you make each afternoon manageable. And suddenly, four years have gone by and you’re still not convinced you want to be there.
What makes people feel secure, really? It is routine that enforces security. Knowing that you have the same answer to that question each day, and can continue to have that answer if you continue holding up your end of the deal. I’ve been holding up that end of the deal since I was fifteen, always worrying about money. Worrying that if I asked for too much, my family wouldn’t be able to afford anything. I'm serious. So scared of not having anything that my first job was almost a gift, a way of knowing that my independence and my wants would never come at the expense of anyone else but me.
Part of my leaving is the need to separate my life from it’s foundation of what security has come to represent for me. I need to eliminate that variable. I’m going to do this.
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