Last Licks

So today was my last day at my job.

For me, a somewhat atypical end (you know, as opposed to the ones where I didn't get laid off). Usually, I have slowly phased my work out to others, and spend the last day making the grand tour of cubes and offices, checking in and saying goodbye. Here, I was working literally up to the last hour I was there - partially a condition of company, which is new and still has systems in need of establishing, and partially a function of the fact that the work I do now will spare others later.

I have always hated saying goodbye, almost to the point of avoiding people. I'm not sure why - there's just an intense pain associated with it, that sense of everything packed in to 5 minutes that you never took the time to say while there was all time in the world: "You are a pleasure to work with", "You look great today", "I enjoy your company". Odd (and probably the subject of another post) that only at the end do we take time for such things which we view as vanities in daily life.

And so, card turned in and armed with coffee mug and pictures in hand, home I went.

God obliged me with a beautiful drive home, one that if I were Buttercup would cause me to deeply and eloquently reflect on God's glory (see Vintage Chick Blog to the Right; alas, I am no Buttercup). As I burst across the Benecia Bridge, the Sun was still high but it was cold enough that a slight haze of fog hung over the steel blue water and below the bridge, enough that the hills at the end of the Bay were submerged beneath a veil of faded white. The hills to the North were green in the sunlight and a sort of verdant purple where the sun no longer touched. I drove along, belting out Styx's Greatest Hits (a sort of full circle I have not yet completely grasped) as I headed out into the sunset, not knowing where I was going, but enjoying the view and the Author who had kindly arranged a spectacular natural sendoff on my last day.