Starting Over

I started a new job this week. I haven't started a new job in almost 14 years. Until June, I was employed by a company at which I had hoped I could spend the duration of my career. Okay...I know that is not realistic these days, but it was something to be proud of in our parent's generation. I guess a little of that generation rubbed off on me because I was proud of my longevity.

So...like I was saying, I had worked at the same place for nearly 14 years when my job was eliminated in June. I was still in my twenties when I began my career with "the company." I met my husband at "the company." He sat in a cubicle close to mine. I could overhear occasional phone conversations that he had with his parents and grandmother. I fell in love with him, in part due to those phone calls, and before he ever asked me on a date.

Truth is he never really asked me on a date...we just sort of happened. And then we just sort of moved in together. Eventually we were married. People from "the company" came to our wedding. Then we got pregnant...and just after we entered our second trimester...just when we began to tell people that we were expecting our first baby, we had a miscarriage. I was at a business dinner for "the company" when the bleeding started. Later we got pregnant again. We had a beautiful daughter. Then, we got pregnant one more time. That time we had a son. Along the way, between the wedding and the day on which my position was eliminated, other things happened. Two of our friends died. One in his sleep. Another shot himself. My father-in-law began a prolonged battle with cancer, that he eventually lost. I worked for great bosses, okay bosses and downright lousy bosses. But, I loved my job. And, I loved "the company."

And then one day, after almost 14 years of service one of the boss-types referenced above invited me into her office to tell me that the company was fiscally challenged and that my services were no longer needed. I had one hour to clean out my office. But, how do you clean out an office full of 14 years worth of accumulation? I could box up the photos on my desk. I could pack the files that were mine to keep. But I could not put the life I made at "the company" into a box. It was entangled in the walls and halls. I could not extract those things in the sixty minutes I had been given to pack my things and leave. So I packed what I could into boxes. My husband put them onto a rolling cart, pushed them down the hall and out the front door. Then he loaded them into the minivan. It has been almost six months now and those boxes are still unpacked on a shelf in the basement of our house.

So, I started a new job this week. Everyone is really nice. I am enjoying myself. I am glad to be starting over again, but I wonder how long it will take me to untangle myself from that place and time and take root at someplace new.