What a difference a week makes

The reality that a week from today, I'll be done working at my present position started to seriously hit me today. I was oddly shocked by the sadness that hit me, despite all of my frustration for the past... oh, eighteen months or so.

I'm just going to miss a lot of the people I work with. For six years, I've been at the low-end of the totem pole as far as title goes. But as a single administrative assistant for almost fifty people, I still felt like a lot of things circulated around me and that I was important in the grand scheme of things - even if I felt that my managers didn't agree with that idea.

There are over a dozen people within my department that have been working with me the entire six years. They've shared in my life as things have changed in incredible ways.

Since starting my job, those people have watched me as the following things have happened:

- Worked through the death throes of a nasty relationship
- Lived in three places (The Beast, Randolph, and Providence)
- Met Erich (nearly a year after starting this job)
- Acquired four cats
- Turned 30
- Lost my grandmother
- Had the huge falling out with my father (still unrepaired)
- Participated in NaNoWriMo four times, winning twice
- Got engaged
- Bought a house
- Acquired my first car

And probably other things that I can't recall off the top of my head.

My mother's constant "Melissa hates change..." addage from my childhood is laughing at me. I don't agree with the sentiment that I hate change. I actually do enjoy change. I'm excited to start my new job. I'm looking forward to the challenge.

But what does throw me off is a sense of instability. Mom and I have discussed this at length, and I do agree with her that part of it comes from being - and knowing at an early age - that I was an adopted child. It's not a fear of change so much as an underlying need for stability.

Yet at the same time, I feel really good. The past week is the first in a long time that I can remember waking up without the sharp pains in my shoulders due to stress. My shoulders are still somewhat tense-- they always have been because I'm generally just a walking stressball. But they don't hurt. For the past year, my shoulders always hurt. I often had to physically try to force my shoulders down from a hunkering position that they tended to rootch into throughout the day - to the point that when I would lie down to sleep, they'd literally be scrunched up by my ears.

I feel like myself again-- I can laugh and joke around. I'm smiling a bit more at work.

I wonder what a week off between jobs will do for me...