Two weeks

It’s been two weeks since I told my bosses that in two weeks I would be spending my last day at work, which is today.

There’s no stranger feeling than watching slowly as my relationships with people I’ve worked with these last three and a half years change in just two weeks. Some of these changes are external, but I suspect that most of them are internal.

People come to me less often for answers to questions they’ve always asked me because they understand they can’t rely on me for much longer.

My mind takes these external changes and retroactively fits it into a narrative where I was never really that important anyway.

Interacting with them doesn’t come as naturally as it used to. Every word feels deliberate, machined specifically to communicate as little emotional content as possible.

But on the inside it’s because I feel guilty. I feel like I’m letting people down by letting them go. Is this guilt natural? Does every person who’s been a part of something larger than themselves feel this way when the inevitable separation occurs?

I’m actually just glad that I feel something. It means my time here has been worth it. It’d be a shame if leaving were easy or painless.

I see the richness and complexity of my feelings and relationships only after it’s been reduced away under the heat of resignation. This process, as it turns out, takes two weeks.