This Is The End

Yesterday was my last day of work. It was the last time I’ll need to take the car to the outer limits of Mississauga, too. So, I’m happy that I’ve just decreased my ecological footprint. As of next Monday, I’ll be taking the transit every day, walking after work, and in the summer, riding my bike. That makes me feel much better. I made a donation the other day to Tree Canada to offset some of my carbon emissions, but I still felt guilty every single time I got into the car, especially in the dead of summer, with sweat rising up off the asphalt, the earth burning up underneath me. Anyway, it’s over now, the daily commute.

For the first time in a long time, I actually left a job versus the job leaving me. Almost every experience in my adult life has been the other way around. I worked in magazines for many years before getting into the web side of things; and both of the magazines I worked for folded, which meant I lost my job twice in less than a year. In the first case, I had worked for three years on contract, which meant I got no package, no severance. I didn’t even get two weeks notice. The second magazine went bust after my only working there for eight months. In that case, despite how broke they were, we all still ended up with two weeks severance. This all happened during and just after my years in grad school as I was finishing up my Master’s degree with massive amounts of debt. I lived hand to mouth, paycheque to paycheque, constantly worrying about money and how to get the bills paid.

So leaving was always by signaled a time to panic. How was I going to pay the rent? How was I going to afford groceries? Each new job hunt was like a pressure cooker: it had to happen and it had to happen fast. And when I got fired from my old-old job by the boss from hell, it was met by a mini-nervous breakdown. I paced the hallways of our newly bought house convinced that we were headed for the poorhouse because my RRHB had recently lost his job as well. I think it was the most stressful period of my life.

And then things got under control. I had good spin on the story: evil empire firing a poor slightly disabled girl who was still recovering from hip replacement surgery. Girl with serious and scary disease thrown in the gallows of stress by a wicked witch who wanted nothing more than her own success and to punish anyone who spoke ill of her behind her back. Who was going to smell like a sweet Jo Malone perfume at the end of that story? Through some of the contacts I had made by working for the evil empire, I found my last job. And it was lovely. The people were lovely, I was working for and with books, which I adore. I kind of found my calling, I think.

So yesterday was bittersweet. I am sad to be leaving. I am thankful for the opportunities that I was given, for the people I’ve met, for the books I’ve read. But I am also totally thrilled for the new challenges that I’ll be facing at the end of the month. My new job is a combination of what I did for the evil empire and what I did up until yesterday. It was an opportunity I did not, or could not, turn down.

But I was also proud of myself that I made a decision based not on desperation, not on the basic need for survival, but for myself. As Oprah as that moment felt, I also feel somewhat vindicated. For the longest time, I felt put upon, depressed from all the tragedy in my life, frustrated that no matter how good I thought I was, terrible things kept happening to me. Some of what I felt just turned out to be life lessons: that you need to rise above certain things, hold your head up and work hard. Some of what I felt turned back inside me and caused things like depression and disease: that bad things happen to bad people, and illogical thoughts persisting, I must be the worst person on earth, so what’s the point of doing things that might make me happy, that might make me well adjusted.

So now with my week off, I have no stress. I’m not under the gun. I’m going to write my stories, take long walks, go shopping, maybe donate some more money to compensate for the fact that I would really like some new shoes, see movies and relax before I get back into the daily grind.

And I’m all about being well adjusted and taking deep breaths. Because my life might not be an episode of My Name is Earl, but it kind of feels that way, with all the good karma finally making its way back into the palm of my hand.