The Stress of Quitting

I seem to be making a habit out of making my flights recently. While I certainly tend to operate at peak performance when subjected to a heightened level of stress, the added drama of arriving at security exactly 12 minutes before departure isn’t the M.O. I really strive for. Fortunately I was able to gallop in my stilettos with overstuffed carry on bags dripping from my shoulder to the gate just as the airline announced final boarding and struggled to eek out an accurate pronunciation of my intimidating German last name.

And added stress on top of the extracurricular non-profit week I’ve scooped up this month, and the stress of quitting, sprinting through the airport in my business casual was not what I needed. Yes, quitting has been stressful.

Although I’ve put in my two weeks notice, and it seems as though I should be gracefully tying up loose ends and prancing about the office in an effervescent, careless glee, I’ve actually found myself putting in even more hours than usual and skipping lunch entirely in efforts to get out of the office before seven. I’m determined to turn over a clean and organized account database, driven to preserve my legacy with the same fervor as The Crucible’s John Proctor, “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!” The pursuit of preserving my name and the image I’ve worked to establish has propelled me to make my final two weeks a productive purgatory.

Perhaps it is masochist, but I’ve even begun to feel nostalgic for the empty-feeling that haunted me over the past 16 months. The same feeling that would drive me to rush home, bang against my keys until I’d produce the semblance of an organized, sane blog post.

When I wrote my last blog entry about quitting, I almost had a worry that by closing out my enduring saga of getting a job that actually made want to spring out of bed the way college had I would have run out of things to write. Certainly I’ve sprinkled ounces of unrelated topics amid my entries mourning the missing passion from my professional day-to-day, but the invariable theme has been “wah wah wah: I want a new job.” With that contest checked off the to-do list, what will I write about now?

The beauty of keeping a personal blog rather than an actual freelance job assignment is that there truly is no restriction to what direction my words blow or sway. And the original intent of this blog was quickly dissipated when I realized that inviting homeless men to a sit down dinner intimidated more than I’d wanted to admit. So now that I can “mission accomplished”, I’ve created a crux where I’ll have to reinvent this blog site. (Unless I want to continue to pine away for yet another new job- which hopefully won’t happen for at least another year or two, and should that be the case, I might have an internal altercation with myself.) I’ve considered opening up this blog to get a little political (a liberal exposé that might cost me the subscription of my parents) or even gush about being in love…

Hopefully inspiration finds me as I amble on in my new endeavors, and hopefully I awake to feel the rush of wind at my back rather than the overwhelming dread of diving into a ocean to tread water.