transition lens

remember june 2013? when i first started this managing-editor gig? it seems like forever ago, and yet now, 13 months later, it's drawing to a close. and i'm surprised at how much i don't want it to be over. i feel sad, and panicky, and weirdly disconnected.

it feels as though i'm being laid off, even though i'm not. in some ways, it's actually worse than being laid off, because i'll still be part of the team... but i will no longer be invited to the meetings i've attended every week for the last 50+ weeks. i will no longer be running things or liaising with the clients or making decisions – i'll be on the outside, hoping for assignments. worse, while i'm there, i'll be watching someone else do what feels like my job.

lately, being at the office feels strangely like the last few days of summer camp, when you know it's ending and you're scrambling to spend as much time as possible with your friends, doing fun things, because soon things will change. only, it's just me – camp is only ending for me, not anyone else. i catch myself being annoyingly clingy; spending time alone, at my condo, makes me oddly anxious in an "omg, i need to talk to someone and hang out and feel connected to people" way. 

i talked to my therapist about it, and she acknowledged that this job shift is actually a considerable loss for me -- as in, it brings about feelings of profound loss, even though it's not technically a profound loss. and she's right, but no one except me seems to get that. people keep saying, "but you'll still be here, right?", in a way that suggests they don't understand what i'm feeling.

yes, i'll still be at the office. but not every day. and not (at this point) with any clear sense of what i'll be doing, how often or for how long. i actually wonder if i'm supposed to make those plans instead of waiting for someone else to come up with a workload for me.

regardless, i'm having a tougher time than i ever thought i would letting go of a job that, for a long while, i really didn't enjoy. but i've grown to enjoy it. and to enjoy my colleagues. and to love the relationships i developed with the freelancers (many of whom have expressed their sadness that i won't be working directly with them anymore, which is very sweet).

i have two days left, and then i pass (back) the torch. and i really want to start seeing this as a change for the better, instead of a dread-inducing shift backwards.