Life is made of ever so many partings welded together. ― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Newly arrived in our vacation home, ready for our first snowbird experience, we plummeted into the dark abyss of depression for a few days. The weather was lousy, the house unfamiliar and motivation to do anything was lacking. Two cats in separate corners, we slowly, suspiciously licked our paws, wondering where the enemy hid. Why? Where was it coming from? If we complained, were we not doing an incredible disservice to our colleagues still at the helm, to every person who was fighting something far greater than our…our what?

We do not tend to wallow, especially simultaneously, yet even knowing we had no right, we dipped into a melancholy neither of us understood. But, I think, it has been revealed. This week, the sun shone. We uncurled and moved toward its warmth. We also unravelled this strange emotional turmoil, batted it around and saw it clearly for what it was.

 

The marble in the graveyard of our careers was clean and pristine, a reflection of our innate personalities—planned and organized. It had stood there since June, isolated, alone and unacknowledged. We had not mourned the loss of professions that meant so much to us, peer groups that are irreplaceable, the piece of us that will never find a home again. It is the loss of youth, of years of hard work and dreams, of infinite aspirations.

 

This week, we inscribed that marker with our stories and said goodbye. And, we got resoundingly drunk as we re-shared those tales that, woven together, are the tapestry of our working lives. Thank you to each of you who has contributed a strand.