A post from the train

I’ve never written a Substack article on my iPhone 15 Pro, but right now, aboard Denver’s A Line from Union Station to Denver International Airport, I find myself at once too distracted to read and hyper-focused on writing, on processing and packaging my feelings in a box (in the form of a Substack article) to revisit again, when this moment is behind me.

My office—what was my office until 50 minutes ago for the last 2.5+ years—is a six-minute walk to the train station. I handed in my badge and laptop, enjoyed my final catered office lunch (laarb, which happens to be one of my favorite of the rotating offerings) with a small group of (former) coworkers and friends, and hopped across the street for a fancy matcha at a food hall, where some of us got caffeinated beverages, some sweet treats, and one a beer before they sent me on my way.

I said goodbye to the building security guard. Originally from Afghanistan, there was a bit of a language barrier between us, but I hope my sentiments came across. Since the company I worked for got acquired and in-office policies were relaxed (rendered non-existent) I’d seen him much less frequently, but his warm greetings at the start and end of each day in the office will linger far beyond the deeply unimportant work that distressed me most days.

I’m going to write more about this at length in August, when a totally new chapter of my career and life begins, but since putting in my notice on June 30 (and many months before that), I looked to today, July 23 with great anticipation. The last day at my job in corporate tech that I was so desperate to leave, and perhaps my last day ever (though I never say never) working a corporate job, not just marking the end of a chapter, but also the end of a six-year-long era.

I descended the front office steps, dragging my roller bag behind me, and walked straight onto the train to the airport, where I’ll be flying to Albany tonight for a week-long trip to the Hudson Valley region of New York. The majority of the week will be spent with my husband and father-in-law, scouting out towns, gathering data, potentially finding a new place to call home in about a year from now, after my husband graduates from his graduate school program. While the move is not happening tomorrow, I can’t help but feel these symptoms—manifestations?—in my body, the momentum that builds as one approaches a big season of change in life. With my job now officially wrapped up, I’ll get to be present as I explore a new area and start to envision a new life for my husband, myself, our dogs, and the family we want to grow together.

This moment doesn’t feel light, and I’m not looking for it to. I’ve gotten to make all these changes, exercise my agency, leave a job and an industry that spiritually depleted me, seek home and community in a new and exciting place, far from the one I’ve lived in and nurtured for the last 5.5 years, but closer to where I was born and raised, closer to my family of origin (from whom I’ve been geographically distant from for 13 years).

In this very moment, I’m feeling the urge to write and this force in my stomach, flattening my appetite like a pancake. When I disembark from the train, I’ll have to fight the impulse to move through the airport erratically, rushing to sit on a four-hour flight. I have four books on my person, but I’m not sure if I’ll read any of them. I wouldn’t mind falling asleep—I got about six hours last night—but I might be too wound. The more I write, the more I’m feeling like I’m describing symptoms of anxiety, and I think it’s present, but it’s also excitement, empowerment, curiosity, gratitude. I am grateful for the choices I’ve got to make, and for the people who have supported me along the way.

Society has carved out milestones for people to follow, and when we don’t progress according to the plan, there can be a sense of disorientation. That’s how I’ve felt taking this leap. At 31, I’m not old, and hopefully have many years of career of my making ahead of me, but I’m also nine years into the workforce post-undergrad. This doesn’t feel like an opportune time to take a huge pay cut, to take a leap, but I feel affirmed. And even while I circled this day on the calendar and ran down the clock, I’m feeling grateful for the six years that proceeded it, all good and bad parts of that time, and putting this chapter in the bag of my existence, carrying it with me where I go next.