The Journey

This is based on a true story lived by me in 2019. The dates and names and some of the exact situations have been changed, but the feelings and emotions and LIST are real.

June 1, 2019 she wrote at the top of the page, it was 6:55am on a Monday. She had gotten to work early because she knew she had more to do today than she could possibly get done in eight hours. The lights were still dim in the building and she had just the glare from the computer screen looking back at her to give her much light. Between the lights being low and all the cubes being empty around her she felt alone. It was kind of a nice feeling; she could get a lot done in that thirty minutes or so before everyone else started to filter into the office. It also gave her time to take in the sights and sounds of the old building and the old cubes around her, she knew her days of seeing those were numbered, literally. From today she had just one month before she left the company and the building that had been her home for the past twenty years. Life was about to change.

Four days ago, the rumors started floating around the building about 9am that day, that a big meeting was coming. Security’s presents were more prevalent than normal, and a lot of key members of upper management were nowhere to be found. Something was up for sure, nobody knew what, but something was going on and it probably wasn’t good. In general, they never got any good news anymore, so Carrie figured just as everyone else in her group, that the news was going to be bad, very bad. At around 2pm as everyone stood around in the hallway waiting for the speaker to appear on the stage that had magically appeared in the hallway. It wasn’t there when Carrie and the other members of her group walked down to the canteen to get some coffee, this morning So they did a good job of sneaking the stage in without being noticed. They did a good job of being stealthy about the whole orchestrated ordeal. The announcements was read by a lady in a red dress, with black shoes from the stage, surrounded by two town cops. It was short and sweet and to the point. The building was closing, they were moving all operations about two hours away. Everyone’s job would move, you could move with the job, or you could take the payout and leave the company. There was no question for Carrie as soon as she hears the options move or not to move, she knew she wasn’t going away. She would pull a Steve Miller Band and “take the money and run”. She’d rather be a “joker, a smoker, or a mid-night toker”, but she had a job too look for now, no time to play out vision’s of 70s songs in her head, her wheels were already turning.

This morning as she started to make her list she started with her wedding, yeap that was coming up soon, very soon and she needed to make sure she had everything done and ready to go for that day. They were not having a big wedding, less than fifty people, but those people still need to eat and have a place to sit and some pretty decoration to look at during their stay at the wedding. She looked over her previous list and saw most of the items were already checked off, flowers were done, dress was altered, food was planned, venue was book, all that was left to do was a few odds and ends to tie up, nothing too stressful. She wrote down on list ONE: find songs we want to play, download them, and call photographer.  That one was simple, she felt good about that one, so she moved onto her list number two, which was the most unfun but rewarding list, things to do, after the wedding. TWO: Change name at Social Security office, change name on licenses, change name on credit cards, change name on car title. She knew there would be more to add to that list, but right now she moved on, that one was going to be annoying and exhausting. Dealing with all the government agencies she would have to deal with, and all the documentation she would have to provide and calls she would have to make. But then she smiled when she thought of having the same last name as Jack, yeah it would all be worth the drama and hassle.

People were starting to mingle into work now, so she put up those two lists, and wrote June 1, 2019 on another piece of paper and started to make the work list, it was going to be long and would probably get more added to it than marked off, but it was a necessity step to ensure she did all the right steps in the process of leaving. List three started with: TELL EVERYONE YOU ARE LEAVING, that probably was going to be the hardest part on any list, telling coworkers of twenty years that she was not going on the new journey with them. Even though she knew her answer immediately over the weekend she still thought about the true ramification of her actions. She would not just be leaving a high paying job; she would be leaving her friends which had become family over the last twenty years. They had all been thought lives changes and challenges together. Weddings, funerals, graduations, births, deaths, traveling together, snowstorms and even a tornado that landed in the middle of the day just miles away from the office. These people were not just someone who sat in a cube beside you for nine hours a day, they were family.

As the day went on, she did as expected, she began to add more to list number three. She added the paperwork she would need to somehow find on the company’s employee pages, complete them, and return them in a certain amount of time. She would need to notify numerous people of her decision and began to make a list of her daily task at work so she could easily hand her work off to her replacement. That was a weird word to hear in her meeting with her manger. At first it kinda hit like a brick, a replacement, dang that was quick. Then it was a relieve, she had worried how her coworkers would absorb the workload of those like Carrie that were leaving the company. Carrie had many lists on paper, and they were all safely guarded in her notebook in her bag she carried everywhere with her. But one list was not on paper, was locked away in her head away from any paper where it could be accidently read by anyone else. This list contained her worries and fears of the upcoming changes occurring in her life.

After work Carrie and Jack went to Jacks home that was up for sale. They walked through the house just to make sure everything was ok and none of the potential home buyers had left a light on or opened the fridge, or cranked the air to 69 degrees. It was bizarre to walk into the empty home for Carrie. It was just two weeks ago they were knee deep in boxes and cleaning supplies packing up all of Jack’s life into boxes and moving them across town to her house. There were no free moments during those few weeks. They were on a mission to get that house on the market and get Jack moved in before the wedding. They really had no idea as they could not see into the future the crash that was about to happen at Carrie’s job. Which would do a trickledown effect on the local economy and home buyers’ market. They just knew they wanted the house on the market as soon as possible, so they could move on the next task. Every evening once they arrived home, they both started to go through a box or two. They were doing a tiring task, but it was a worthy task, they were making a home from what was just two houses before, they were making a life together with every fork and every lamp that was, unpacked, moved, or donated. They had both been alone for a while, just peddling through life since their breakup’s, finding each other just a few short months ago was something amazing and as they tell everyone, was a God intervention. Every evening was physically tiring, but spiritually and emotionally it was reviving. As they discovered more and more about each other and realized how they had bene searching for each other their entire lives.  Every night before they went to sleep, they counted the days until they were man and wife and gave thanks to the Lord above for allowing them to find each other in this crazy world.

Her list number four was designated o finding a new job. She really could not explain it to anyone but somehow, she knew she would have a job before her final day at her current company. She spent the last weekend updating her resume and setting up accounts on Linkedin and Indeed. Most of it was done with a few glasses of red wine about 11pm, while watching reruns of Rizzoli and Isle. Dang she forgot how good that show really was, and how much she missed Dr. Maura Isles character. She was quirky and honest and so smart. Carrie hoped she had a few of Maura’s traits that would help her get a new job in a good company. June 5^th was her birthday and she had created a message to send out on Facebook asking everyone for her birthday to help her find a new job. June 5^th was also the day she had to give her company the official paperwork saying she was leaving. Once those papers were turned in there was no going back, her decision was set in stone.

June 5^th Carrie woke up early, as she does most every day now, and got started on her list. It was her birthday yes, but this day was also the beginning of a new journey for her, she was excited and nervous, and ready for the next chapter to begin. But, first before any birthday fun could began, she had to close those last few pages on her current chapter. She told all her coworkers she was sending in the paperwork; she spoke with her manger to tell him the paperwork was being sent, and she went to her desk and hit the send button, her new adventure was about to get started.

The next two weeks were a blur of meetings with her team members that were moving with the job, and meetings with HR about her leaving the company. Afternoons spent going though boxes and sending out resumes and applications, and her spare minutes at lunch she went over the wedding list making sure everything was done. At night she surprisingly slept and slept well. Probably because she was so exhausted from her non-stop ever-changing world. Over the next week or so the meetings dwindled down but the workload went up. Carrie worked non-stop for ten hours a day to ensure she went above and beyond what was ask of her, leaving no one with a heavy workload due to her leaving.

Her last day official day with the company was July 1^st, 2019, her wedding day was June 29^th, 2019. She had a weeks’ worth of vacation saved up and she was going to use it for the last week in June. So as she entered the building on Monday June 23^rd she was tired, but she felt good about her choices and her situations in this world she held her head up high and was ready for the next chapter of her life to begin. It was raining that day and as she sat down in her now empty cube, she closed her eyes and took in the smell of the rain. As long as she could recall you could smell the rain in that building. She was never sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. But, as soon as it started to rain you could smell that fresh smell of sweet Carolina rain falling on roof. That is something she would miss, along with the familiarity of her cube, and her friends that surrounded her. She would miss the celebrations of birthdays, and the feeling of being surrounded by friends each and every day. However, Carrie was ready for her next chapter, she stood up and walked out of the room. Ready and prepared for her last week of work, and prayed for her future. 

Around 11am she got the call from the company she had interviewed with last week. She felt it was a good interview, but she wasn’t sure if it went as well as she felt. It had been a long while since she had an interview so she was very leery of being hopeful. She went into the meeting with an open heart and an open mind. She didn’t know what questions would be ask, but she knew if she could just be herself and put it all out on the table when she left that room, she would be proud of herself. She did just that and more apparently, they called her back and offered her a job. She would start the job on Tuesday July 9^th. She had taken the call in the meeting room where for the past five years she had attended her team meetings, she sit there alone looking around the room. Taking in all the sights of the blinds that didn’t completing close, the chairs that were mis-matched, and the stain in the floor, that in every meeting made her wonder what it was from. Carrie sat there for awhile and just took the smells and the sounds of her home away from home for the past twenty years in, before she got up to leave.

The next four days went by and her emails and her list became smaller and smaller. She marked things off all her list one by one and her stress level went down one mark at a time. On Friday Morning she walked up to the glass doors and swiped her badge one last time, she walked to her desk one last time, she walked to get coffee one last time, and around 3pm she sent one last email. She hit delete on all the items in her sent folder and looked at her inbox. For the first time ever in her twenty years the box showed empty, she was officially done. She turned in her badge, her laptop and walked out the front door of the corporate office for the last time ever.

On Tuesday of the week of her wedding she signed her last name for the last time on a check to finish paying the photographer. That is something she would never sign again, as it was the last check in her book. she would order next checks once she had changed her name. Saturday morning, she woke up for the last time as a single woman, tomorrow morning she would wake up beside her husband. She would start the rest of her life with the man whom she considered her soul mate. She would wake up Sunday morning a wife and a stepmom to a wonderfully sweet young lady, who was searching for someone to hear her, and for some reason Carrie could hear her.

July 1, 2019 Carrie woke up In Tennessee, not in her bed in North Carolina. She woke up with a ring on her finger, a new one she didn’t have yesterday morning. She woke up beside not her finance, but her husband, he was still asleep, she liked to watch him sleep, he slept so peaceful, it made her feel safe. She woke up with no current job, as she really wasn’t employed until she started the new job next Tuesday. For now and for the first time since she was sixteen she had no job and she was going to enjoy it. There was no list to make, no list to follow, she was on her honeymoon for the next week. She and Jack were going to enjoy every moment of every minute for the next week. Their new world was starting in more ways than one, and she was not going to let the past hold her back anymore.