It seems irresponsible of me to write a post about quitting my job and then never follow up with what came next… I am here to set all of your minds at ease that I have not grown out my hair and moved under a bridge to start asking travelers to answer my questions three (although this option has, occasionally, occurred to me). In all honestly I haven’t had time to adequately grow my hair to a length that is required for a career as a troll.

So. I quit my job and it was cathartic and liberating and all of the emotions that are involved with no longer having to report daily to a place that exasperates you –  not to mention the end of two hours in the car every day where I felt all of  the good years of my life where slowly being wasted.  I worked there for almost exactly one year and when I left I was able delete my cashe file, pack up my starry night mouse pad and  drive away like I had never existed. In my head it feels like years since I’ve been there.

I managed to talk my way back into the institute of higher learning which I had previously worked for. This return is a little weird for me like a new beginning at somewhere very familiar. I imagine it’s like buying your parents old house and moving your new family in to it. You know there are skeletons in the closet but you are not the same person in the same circumstances and some of them bother you and some of them don’t.

When I came back I was given the same log in and same email account I had used previously, the first time I opened it I had over 3,700 messages that had been sent to me in the last 18 months, some from the day I left – missives from colleagues that where sad to see me go, it would have been nice to have seen these as I was applying for unemployment and wondering what I was going to do and how I was going to make ends meet.

But that’s neither here nor there and now I work for different people at a different office and I’m simply going to move forward instead of looking back. My experience so far has been nothing but positive and the twelve minute commute between my office and Lucy’s school allows for free time with her that I haven’t been able to enjoy for a long time.

Mostly, right now my new posting seems to simply be a platform that allows me to go out to lunch and reconnect with people I haven’t seen in a long time. I know at some point I will be required to start participating and getting my hands dirty, but until then I am enjoying my honeymoon phase and slowly packing on extra weight from all of my lunch dates.

It’s like the freshman fifteen all over again.