That's that

For all practical purposes, today was my last day of work. I'll go back in for one more (partial!) day later in the month when my vacation runs out, but this was basically it. Three years, one month and twenty-six days doesn't sound like a tremendously long time, but it feels like my first day was a lifetime ago. After all the agro and all the heartache that place has given me, I wasn't surprised that today felt so anticlimatic...but it still seems like I missed something. Like I should have felt sad or excited or anxious...or....something. Rather, I just tired very quickly of having the same conversation with people over and over again about where I'm going and yes I'll miss the Bank and yes I'm excited and no I won't miss the Texas weather and yes I know it gets cold in Michigan.

Still, I'm not sorry we didn't do more stuff to mark my leaving. I really don't like being the center of attention at those kinds of events (I know, weird....there's actually a time when I don't like to be the center of attention...who knew?).

It was time to leave. Despite a few well-intentioned folks, the Bank is a tremendously toxic, petty place filled with toxic, petty people. This life is too short to be spent surrounded by people who spin nothing but negativity and make you question your self-worth. It's a waste to be underutilized and underappreciated at 24 by people who are threatened by ideas, by intelligence, by creativity. It's just not worth the aggravation, and the money definitely isn't enough to make it worth slogging along for a few more years. I learned many things, but it's time to move on and do something more productive.

In the background right now, City of Angels is playing, and Nicholas Cage reminds me that "somethings are true whether you believe in them or not." It's one of my favorite lines from that movie, and I've been thinking recently about the converse--that some things are false despite the depths to which you believe in them. I think one of the more grisly parts of dealing with things in a nonescapist reality is recognizing that, sometimes, people and experiences aren't what you want them to be. Sometimes, your expectations exceed what the situation can possibly yield, and sometimes your assessments are wrong. Yet there's a decided lack of punch in the the practice of expecting nothing to avoid disappointment. As Steve Martin reminds me in L.A. Story, "a kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish we true." Maybe that's why we tend to kiss with eyes closed--makes it easier to wish together the holes in what we know, what we feel. The willing suspension of disbelief can be a shell of safety.