Changes

It's been a strange week.  

I'm currently ending one career path and taking a new one.  I have worked in the banking industry for most of my life and about four years ago, decided to get a degree in healthcare management because I felt like it would provide for a better career path for me-well, blah, blah, blah-doesn't matter why, just know that I got the degree.

I graduated last spring and it has been a heartwrenching year of searching, applying, and never getting called in for an interview.  Then finally, my luck changed, I got a call for an interview and long story short, got the job after a bit of a harrowing interview process.  

So this has been my last week at my current job.  My job that I have had for 8 years.  The job that I have gotten to know my co-workers so well that they feel more like family than co-workers.  The week began with this unbearable anxiety of not knowing whether or not this was the right decision.  My emotions wavered from happiness and excitement to sadness and fear.  Then I finally got to that numb point when I couldn't process any more emotions, so I tried to just feel nothing.

Then today happened.  It is my next to last day, and my co-workers threw me a going away party.  My mantra all week has been, "I won't cry. I won't cry. I won't cry."  

I cried.

Then I cried again tonight when I read their cards wishing me well and congratulating me.  And I fully expect to cry again tomorrow when I walk out the doors for the last time.  

Crying is not an easy emotion for me to do in front of people.  I don't know why, but I just like crying in private.  Maybe because snot runs down my face, maybe because I look like I've gone 20 rounds with Mike Tyson, or maybe because I just don't like showing my vulnerable side.  But that's for me and a therapist to figure out one day I guess. 

Changing careers at any age is scary.  But this has been the hardest for me and I haven't figured out why yet.  I just wish I could be my 20 something self again sometimes and jump into new opportunities with wreckless abandon and little thought, but that is just not who I am anymore.  At 37, I have to analyze and contemplate every decision.  It also doesn't help that I am a Libra, and there is an inherent need for me to weigh every possible outcome before I can make my mind up.  And I guess the fact that at my age I am now expected to be an adult and make my decisions carefully and take them seriously plays a role in it being harder to just jump into the next big thing.

But the next big thing is almost here.  After tomorrow, I have Friday through Monday off to take a long weekend to decompress, have family time on Easter, and get ready for the next big thing on Tuesday when I start my new job.  It is somewhat fitting that my new beginning begins after Easter, the Christian holiday that symbolizes all new beginnings.  And in the Spring time, when flowers start to bloom and life just seems to begin to flourish with new color and meaning.  

I look forward to my new beginning.  But I also look back at the people I won't get to see everyday.  I don't know what I ever did to deserve such a wonderful life.  But I'm thankful for whatever it was and for the people I have been given.  The people I have met, my work family, my real family and my friends mean more to me than they will ever know.  I don't tell people how much I think about them or how much I care about them nearly enough.  (I'll work on that.)

I'll finish my reflections tonight with a Rumi Quote.  (For anyone who doesn't know, I love Rumi poems and quotes.)

"Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond." -Rumi

Goodnight and peace to all,

Deborah