She's leaving

For nearly three and a half years now, I've lived in a house with a strong roof. No matter what kind of storm was going on high over my head, the torrent was funneled down a gutter to a rain barrel, where it was organized, useful, and all that chaos made sense. It was a good place to be.

My boss has resigned, effective near the end of the month. I'm losing that roof, the shelter, the way things came down making sense. I'm not looking forward to it.

She's got good reasons to go. Better than the garden variety, 'better opportunity' reasons you get 95% of the time. I can't fault her. I'm just depressed that it has to be this way. But it does.

There was a lot of patience, and a lot of learning. I came in here thinking I pretty much knew all there was to know about my job. I spent the first year messing up – barely even aware I was messing up – and didn't do well on my first review. But she took it upon herself to teach me the skills I needed to be more professional. I don't think I ever got proficient, but I'm better than I was. I check things now, I search deeper, I go back over things. Stuff still slips through the cracks, but a lot doesn't – I know, because I'm the one finding those mistakes. Anyway, I'm more aware now, and she's to thank for that.

I feel like I'm losing a friend. People can stay in touch, I know, but work was really what we had in common, and I'm not sure how to maintain that now. We didn't do much outside work... she was my boss, I was her report; there had to be some kind of distance just to maintain the working relationship. But still, there was more to it. I hadn't realized, quite, how much I looked forward to her coming in in the morning... how I tried to have one or two little things out of the way, just in case she asked. Even if we didn't chat long, she was here. Even if we only really went to lunch a few times a month, the option was there.

Most of what I found to look forward to in this place is going to disappear, and it's going to be what downstairs was... a job, in a sea of familiar-looking strangers. Part of the sense of home I've had here is going to disappear.

There are new opportunities, and maybe I will grow accustomed to them, and even eventually enjoy them. But I'm never going to like how they came about.