Moving On

So today was my last day at The Company.

It went pretty much as all last days go: a little work, a little packing, a fair amount of talking and saying goodbye. Overall, I'll miss the people greatly.

It's somewhat noteworthy that this job is longest I've been at a company, almost 3 years. Certainly somewhat longer than I had planned to stay, yet somewhat less than I had intended to stay.

Longer yet not intended? Yes. I had essentially conceded that, after May, I was willing to stay. I forgot how disruptive it is to find work while you're working: trying to arrange interviews, trying to stay dedicated to the job yet getting one's hopes up, and the eventually leaking of enthusiasm when you don't hear anything.

And leak it did - between my first interview and my acceptance letter, it was just shy of 2 months. In that sense, I had conceded: I hadn't really looked for anything new and didn't really intend to.

And now here we are.

The happiest feeling I had today was pulling off of the two lane highway merge onto the freeway, knowing in my heart of hearts I would not have to do that one more time. The saddest, the last entry into to the car and firing up the engine, knowing that I would not be there one more time.