Importance of Goodbye

Last week was my first week of work and I have to say I was a bit worried.  Not that I couldn’t do the job but that I couldn’t do the job while being a mom and essentially being a single mom.  By Thursday morning I wondered to my husband if I had done the right thing by leaving my old place of employment.  He reassured me I had absolutely done the right thing, that I would be doing work that mattered and work for someone that appreciated me.  Not having my nights and weekends ruined by some work situation would be priceless, he told me.  But I was still unsure.

But Thursday happened to be the day I actually was able to work with people in the capacity I was hired.  Previous to Thursday it was all a lot of reading.  Thursday I had a meeting with a woman who was incredibly pleasant and super excited about her role with the organization.  She even knew my sister and about my side photography work.  It began to turn things around.

My old company happened to be having their annual conference on the same day.  I began the annual conference about four years ago and coordinated much of the efforts.  This year I got much of the logistics figured out but when I gave notice they passed the role to another and that was fine.  But I was having a hard time knowing that all these people around the country that I considered friends, were so close by and I wouldn’t see them.  See, my old company didn’t let me say goodbye.  Not really.  They asked that I not tell anyone I was leaving until my last day, so on my last day I wrote a preapproved carefully worded message saying goodbye. People well wished me and said congratulations but then the company abruptly removed the post and removed me from the group towards the end of my last day.  So I was a little sad and more than a lot resentful.  The bitterness was suffocating me.

Then everything changed!  I went to meet one of my old photographers for dinner Thursday night and with him he brought a handful of people and I was able to hug them.  Giving them  hugs and telling them goodbye meant the world to me.  All my angry bitter sad feelings went away because I got to have closure.  I wanted more than anything for them to know I still loved them and that I would miss them and I think they do.  That’s important to me because I REALLY cared about these people.

So Thursday was a tipping point for me.  It tipped me from an unsure and worried mom with a sudden rush of bad skin, to a relieved and happy mom (that is still recovering from previously mentioned bout of stress induced zits).

How lucky I am that I have something that makes saying goodbye hard.  Until we meet again my friends!