This new experience of really leaving the past behind, of going from one place to the other and knowing that whatever had been would remain just so, was something I immediately accepted as a gift, a right of nature. This most simple of movements, the turning of your back, is among the most difficult to make, but once it has been made you cannot imagine it was at all hard to accomplish.
Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography of My Mother, page 25.
I read this the day before I went to clean out my office space. Before I handed over my office key, computers, insurance card, ID card, and left the campus one last time looking like a mountaineer with a bag that’s still sitting unpacked in the passage.
Yes, it was hard to believe I had agonised so much about making the decision to stop working. But I also did feel something that might be characterised as loss. It’s a beautiful campus, the classrooms are nice, the colleagues (two of whom formed the waving party for my farewell, as the campus was empty) are among the best I’ve had. Not only that, but one of the only times I got to speak a not too filtered English was with my colleagues. They were an opportunity for natural communication. And the students are polite. I felt conscious of losing those things. Or perhaps it is only now, in retrospect. that I feel that.
When I was cleaning up, I came upon a list of improvements I was vowing to make before the start of a particular semester. It had things like, don’t let the marking pile up, don’t run home after fourth period. In my last term, both of those just happened naturally. I couldn’t imagine sticking around after fourth period ended at 4:20!
I suppose what I really feel nagging at me, which I know will just go away over time is a bit of disappointment, shame, that I wasn’t able to do it all. In my last semester, I just was not able to give the job everything I used to. Before the start of the semester, something was telling me that I needed to think about adjusting my approach; I needed a new game plan to account for a gained child. But I ignored that something.
Then there was what felt like a sensory attack after a year of online classes followed by a year of maternity leave. Things that I didn’t have the capacity to handle were coming at me from all over the place.
Perhaps I would have worked out a game plan over time, too. But the decision has been made to move on. The campus will remain beautiful, the colleagues cordial, the students polite. Somebody will make lists of things to do in each semester. The place will continue to exist. Is continuing to exist in this very moment. Its being unperturbed by, unaware of, incapable of perceiving my absence. As it was with my presence, for that matter.