Today was my last day at work. Alanis Morissette sang isn’t it ironic on the radio as I pulled out of the parking lot. It’s like raaaiiiin on your wedding day; a free riiiiiiiide when you already paid.
It was not ironic, it was just a bummer.
A couple months ago we had a departmental meeting, there are five of us, 3 acupuncturists and 2 pain docs. When they said someone from high above was going to join our meeting, I was pretty sure we were going to get the axe.
We got the axe.
The higher up person spent 30 minutes hemming and hawing about how tight things are and bleak and how we couldn’t cut this and we definitely can’t cut that. And then in 5 seconds she said, so we are closing this department. She said it was really too bad and we all just stared forward, and for a moment, no one said anything.
I am still working at my other job.
Another acupuncturist told me he threw the I-Ching several times before this meeting and it was always bad. He kept getting the marrying maiden. “No one wants to be the maiden,” he emphasized. I looked into it and he was right because with the marrying maiden change is beyond her control. No goal is now favorable. Learn to accept what cannot be changed.
Everyone today was sad. One patient said at the start of his treatment, “I miss this already.”
I will miss the people.
I will miss the woman who praised Jesus throughout the sessions, “thank you, Jesus!” “In Jesus name!” When we parted ways, she was better, improved, and she said “I thank God, and also I left my husband.”
This clinic did not allow for essential oils and instead had medical biospray to clean out any bad smells left over in a room. I called it the pagan-free odor eliminator.
The people in the office were nice. I tried to be professional. One time a coworker walked by in a Charlie Brown sweater and I said I like your sweater and I made myself not say it’s so Charlie Brown and she said yeah thanks it’s my Charlie Brown sweater!
We helped a lot of people in pain in the body and beyond the body and we met in the middle through sharing space and chatting and not chatting. I will miss it. I will not miss the sharing of a desk, rooms, packed into a sad basement, with an extreme amount of confusion with systems, messages, meetings. It was hard to know what to pay attention to- dozens of emails would flash through, 98% had nothing to do with me, yet it felt rude to delete delete delete.
Now my position is deleted.
My password included This&%$is121dumb! mixed up with numbers, a capital, and a symbol. What I typed wasn’t my password. It was easier to remember.
I met new people and learned new systems and had some laughs and made connections so even though short and confusing as a wider experience it was still an interesting place to be while it lasted.
They had a party for us and it was warm and festive even though we lost our jobs. There was even cake.
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