Getting Back to Normal

For the last couple of weeks, my life seems to have been about stress, sadness, loss, change, depression, doubt, and a dozen other emotions I’m sure I could come up with.

I work in a three-team environment, and two of that three are leaving my team. That just leaves me. It’s been difficult on many levels. On the emotional level, I’m not going to be working with two people that I personally consider friends. They are moving on and, from my previous experience with professional friends who change jobs, the number who actually keep in touch is down right around zero. So they will move one and in all likely hood, I will not see them again. I understand that, but I’m not the type of person that lets go of friendships easily. I don’t take it personally. Every one of you reading this will remember all the friends who entered your life and, over time, left your life. It seems to be the way of life -- change. Or perhaps I need to qualify a personal friendship versus a professional friendship. But when you work with someone for so long, that line gets blurred.

And change can be a good and healthy thing. For my department, it is healthy to have new minds look at old issues that we face. Most all the time, it is good to have a fresh outlook on problems. Of course, for me, the one who is finding replacements for these individuals, it’s just simply hard work going through interviews, listening to individual after individual explain what they have done, and why they are the most suited for the job at hand. And then calling them to hear the disappointment in their voices when you inform them that they did not get the job.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing, and it’s not left a lot of time for blogging, or any other personal endeavors for that matter. I go to work early, do interviews, and in between that, bring myself up to date on all the open issues facing the department -- issues that I haven’t dealt with in a long while because I interact mostly with management doing special projects dealing with data. Then, I come home late, totally exhausted. I go to bed early, and lay in bed worrying if I will find the right people to fill the need of my department. In other words, I bring my work home with me. That’s not like me and under normal circumstances, I leave it behind. But this has been an extraordinary time for me.

It will even out over the next couple of weeks. Things are already starting to fall into place a bit. We will go on, and I’ll settle back into my life. I’m thankful I had the vacation to Olympic National Park. But, all the relaxation and losing all my stress on that vacation was followed by all the stuff I had to deal with at work. So, the stress is back up, but at least I got to see a beautiful part of the county. I still have many photos to post and I’m starting to work on them again.

So I’m back. Life has been difficult for me, but I’ve also learned that I’m not that far removed from what I used to do years ago. It’s like riding a bicycle I suppose. It all comes back to you. You simply have to learn what has changed while you were doing other things.

I’ve missed writing, and I hope that I haven’t lost too many people who have frequented this blog in the past. At least now you know why I’ve been away.

Today, we are taking time for ourselves. We are looking to take a small hike somewhere. We bought a book on Connecticut hikes. And tonight, we are going to Grant’s Restaurant in West Hartford. We’ve heard good things about it.

It’s good to be back!