Saying Goodbye Like It's My Job

My week was a strange dichotomy of frantic-frustrated successor training and a barrage of goodbyes to the all those who have peopled my world for the past two years.

This job and I have had some rough times - lots of days it killed me - I'd think I'd never make it out with any semblance of fondness. But as I got closer and closer to these goodbyes, I realized how fortunate I have been to work in a place where so many of my co-workers became my very close friends. And if I should find myself, somewhere down the road, feeling crummy and racked with self-doubt, I need only remember this day and that I have been so loved.

I got these two send off letters from a co-worker's awesome kids.
They were penned by a six and a seven year old. I love them.
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I went out with former co-workers Langdon and Michael very late on Friday night. Langdon and I have been close from the start of my tenure at the Arts Center and we some how managed line up our departures. She's off to get her master's in NYC.
I've drug my "last days" out over several weeks, and had I not been utterly sick of the sinking feeling goodbyes have been leaving me with, I may have insisted that Friday be another Farwell to Us extravaganza. Had I, Michael would have promptedly left. It would have been the seventh such event he'd attended.

We talked and laughed for hours, the way you do before you leave. The way that makes leaving so much worse, because now you've got to mourn that of closeness you inevitably find right before you move on.
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Michael paid our tab before we could stop him. We argued until he pointed out that he was the only one at the table with a job.

And so he is, and even th0ugh I will miss him, I'm not sad about that.