I officially finished up at the Emerging Writers’ Festival yesterday.
I wrote about how I feel about that over on their blog, so if you’d like to pop over, by all means. I’ll wait here until you get back.
Anyway, so in the weeks leading up to my departure I kept getting asked if I was going to have finishing-up drinks, or a party, and I kept replying in an emphatic ‘no’. I’m not great at goodbyes and would’ve been happy just slipping away because I won’t be a stranger (in fact, I’ll be back in three weeks to visit). But, as you can see by the picture, plans were afoot and it was lovely to have an intimate gathering to share a toast, have a glass of bubbles and chat.
Perhaps part of my unease about work-related ‘last days’ is because the last one – from eleven years ago – happened under such stressful circumstances. I’d quit because of my breakdown, and so my fancy luncheon, at the law courts end of town, in a restaurant with decent silverware and an ‘express’ set menu if you were in a hurry, felt very weird. What saved it was my manager – a wonderful, decent woman, whose wild ambition and desire to enact change put her off-side to upper circles of management in the NFP I worked for, but I personally found very inspiring – as she handed over my farewell present.
I opened it and it was a tan, zip-up satchel made from a soft material. For documents and files and what-not.
“This is for you to store all your writing when you get very famous,” she said.
It sits on my bookcase. I still get emotional when I look at it.
Eleven years later, and I’m not very famous (or famous at all!), but I am writing, and I find myself sitting here. Right where this picture was taken, mere minutes ago.
I have been second-guessing myself as to what I would plan to do today as opposed to what I’d actually end up doing. I admit, neither of those scenarios entertained the notion that I’d be nursing one cracking hormone headache, but that’s exactly what’s happened (I’ve been fighting one off all week – they are stubborn bastards). But that’s not really been much of an excuse in the past, things still need doing, as they always will, and that’s what’s going to happen now. I’m going to post this, get up and get moving.
Because that’s the only way to get stuff done.
