This has become the Week of Lasts.
Yesterday was my last formal day at both Church and the Church Coffee Bar and at the Rabbit Shelter. This Thursday will be my last day on Produce (A)Isle. This Saturday will be my last day of Iaijutsu at my current dojo. Sunday, I will be on a plane - first to Old Home to begin the discussion about my parents' estate (and The Ranch), and then the following Thursday on what will become New Home 2.0.
It is an odd thing, this packing of Lasts into a short time frame. On one hand it makes the pain of separation bard but fast, the ripping of the existential Band-Aid with the brief pain followed by relief - there is little time to drag on the leaving of things. There is a date and then this thing ends, and this thing, and so on and so on.
On the other hand, it it feels like a series of great losses in my life.
These activities that are ending are not - with the exception of Produce (A)Isle - recent additions. I have been involved with these places for ten to fifteen years. All of a sudden - essentially in the period of two weeks - they are being put to the wayside. Sure, I may return as a visitor in the coming year and periodically after that - I have been encouraged to do so - but those returns will be different. One is no longer an active week in/week out participant. One is a visitor - a visitor with history, but a visitor from the past, a sort of time-traveler that returns to see how things are going without the ability to really change anything.
Over time, the memory of me will fade in all of these places. I will become "Hey, do you remember...." If I am exceptionally lucky, I will pass into Institutional Lore, a sort of legendary presence that fewer and fewer actually knew but many know only through the stories told about them.
Perhaps that is the best of all possible worlds - to live in stories, long after I am gone and the actual events are forgotten. And, of course, new stories cannot start until the old stories finish.
They'll be talking in the Produce (A) Isle about that time the lettuce heads went rolling down bins when the box tipped over and TB was the closest to it...........:) And that's how Legends are born! Now you get to make new stories in a new location TB.
ReplyDeleteHeh Heh - true enough, Nylon12. I do have the knowledge that dim glimmers of me do remain in some portions of companies I have worked at, so there is always hope.
DeleteIt reminds me of the week when COVID pandemic shut down our employment and even going outside had to be deemed justified. Everything which was normal suddenly changed.
ReplyDeleteBut you already have new horizons, new challenges to confront and win. Be sure to leave on a good note with all of them - Fond memories are far easier to recall.
Anon- That is a great point that I had not thought of. It is exactly like The Plague: we left things half finished or undone in some cases, and they never got returned to. People left during that time that I never saw again - Good Heavens, people got hired and left that I never met.
DeleteBut I think you are right: a short mourning period is better. Also, it is always a good idea to end on a good note - I have found more often than not, I have to recross some portion of the same stream and it is always easier if people have good memories of you.
Looking back at my many moves, I guess I have never experienced the same feelings of looking back at the lasts. I have always been focused on the futures. I guess that is probably due to being an optimist.
ReplyDeleteBut I think it would be kind of neat, maybe, to be a fly on the wall and here those still there talking about "that guy".
Ed - It could be that this time, the reason is that some of these activities have been ones that I have done for many years. The only comparable one I can think of is when we moved in 2009 and changed churches: we had been at that church before a split and followed the split. There was a lot of history that we left there.
DeleteThat said, to your point, there are new memories to be made and adventures to be had. And sometimes leaving is the only way we will find them.
I do have some hope that - at least in my industry - somewhere is dusty document histories and records of changes, my name lives on.
Moving reminds me of school... graduating from each level with growth experiences & relationships.. except with pop quizzes tossed in to spice things up. ;-)
ReplyDelete~hobo
"Today's Pop Quiz will be on 'Articles to be included in the move and articles you intend never to use again'. Using your #2 pencil, please open your notebook..."
DeleteDo you find it easier to be on this side of the decision? I usually feel that way. It's time to look ahead and prepare for the changes.
ReplyDeleteI really missed only a few places I left. Home, Comfort (just a little way from Welfare, actually), and college.
STxAR - I do not know if it is easy or hard; it is more that the decision is made and now I have to get ready - in that sense, my hand is being "forced" to work on the issues.
DeleteOutside of my Rabbit Shelter and my Dojo and some folks at church, there is very little I will miss from here. It was a good place for the family, but my heart has never been here.
Have a safe trip, TB. May the changes be easy. God bless.
ReplyDeleteThank you Linda! I will say that the overall process has been remarkably easy so far, thanks to the relocation package.
DeleteThis is not uncommon in my life too. I find that I have an urgency to complete tasks as soon as I get them. There seems to be a shortage of time. Not sure if is just me, but I feel the train a coming, round the bend, at high speed. Too fast to make the curve safely.
ReplyDeleteI am anticipating a large wreck.
I found inside just a few years I lost all my friends, job prospects, moved to a new place, lost my dad, uncle, Total over turn of my hopes and desires. Gone. Survived, is all I can say. Started new hobbies, found new friends, the old ones were not healthy for my new path anyway. So it was a blessing after all. I just didn't see it at the time. Going home soon.
Polimath - My typical reaction to getting a task is "I need to do this now". What I have to remind myself is that not everything needs to be started just when it is mentioned.
DeleteWhile not as dramatic as yours, the last year has been the same sort of thing - laid off twice, having my mother pass, and now looking at a relocation. Expand that just a little and suddenly we are into my father passing. That said, I am sure that I will find new things there that will lessen the blow.
I, too, hear the whistle shrieking as we enter a curve I do not think we can take.
It seems that when things finally change, it's often so fast it makes your head spin. Hopefully, things will settle down soon.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, it really does. One wishes that such changes could moderate themselves, but perhaps that is not the way the universe works.
DeleteIt's been many, many years since we last moved from a community we had established ourselves in. Before moving here we were in a pattern of Hub's job moving him about every five years. I actually enjoyed those transitions, but in those early years, I used to say, it won't be long 'till folks will talk about us as, "that couple with a strange last name. I think I started with a B..."
ReplyDeleteBecki, 15 years for us. Prior to that, we were in more or less the same place for 10 years. Growing up we never moved, so this first time I did this as an adult it was a little jarring. I am trying to embrace this opportunity to refresh our life.
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