I am not just me

I have complained so much about being unemployed. Not just occasional whining, not just "I have nothing better to say" complaints but genuine, heartfelt, deeply rooted complaint. So as this transitional part of my life wraps up, it came as quite a shock to learn that I was actually going to miss some of these things I've been whining about. I'm going to miss the baby, even though some days he can be tyrannical in ways I did not know babies could be. I'm going to miss the Hedge Fund even though I still don't really know what it is and I hate loading printer paper and my hands are always paper cut from filing.

So I get that I sound utterly ridiculous. I am very excited to have a job. For real. And to the people who have fallen victim to my whining, I apologize in advance for the M. Night Shyamalan plot twist I am about to throw at you.

Even though I've been dying to move on, as it turns out, I'm sad about moving on.

Here is a fact about what it is like to be me: I am an attacher. I get attached. I pride myself in not being a stage-five-clinger [generally speaking] but I do, after prolonged periods of time with other humans, find myself often inexplicably attached to them. It doesn't matter if they are tiny and refuse to take naps or if they are brusk money-handling types. It doesn't matter if they are normal or exciting or crazy or wah-wah debbie downers.

When it comes time to leave them, I'm going to have to give myself a second to grieve it.

The annoying part is that I always forget this about me. At each transition, then, I find myself confused and startled at my emotions. Usually someone [my mom, mostly] will say, "oh yes, I expected this." And then I'm all, "Well why didn't you tell ME!??!?" because I am almost always caught off guard by it. When I got sad last week about leaving the babe, I wondered to myself if this attachy way of being was really good, in the end. Should I work on it? Maybe transitions don't have to be this hard every time. Maybe I can fix this about me.

But the thing of it is, wrong or right, I like this about me. I like that I get attached. I like that I feel the absence of people when they're not around anymore because it means they meant something to me when they were here. I like that when I say goodbye [even if it's not a real goodbye but just an I-won't-see-you-all-the-time-anymore goodbye], my heart feels a pinch that stays for a while. There comes a time to move on, and I usually can. But the person I am right now in this moment, the person who interviewed and was offered and accepted a big girl job wasn't just me as I am right now today.

It was Suzie's mentor. Bodie, Andrew, Gabe & Sara, Christina, Micah, Lucy [the kid who liked to rescue stray cats after school], and even Luke's nanny. The HF's trusty paper stacker. The most paranoid part-marker Weaver Manufacturing ever saw [I kept having dreams that planes crashed because parts were mismarked. It was traumatizing]. It was my childhood best friend and the bully from middle school art class and a bunch of roommates and the kid I taught how to fist bump at First Pres. It was the old lady who wanted me to help her decide [for hourssssssss] if she should buy Matchstick or Bootcut corduroy pants. It was everyone I've ever gotten attached to and it was a bunch of jobs I maybe didn't love with a bunch of people I definitely did. My point is, I did not grow up in a vacuum, but surrounded by people [for better or worse] who meant something.

I am not just me. Or at least, I didn't get to be me all by myself.

And I don't think I want to change anything about that.