Something occurred to me as I sat at my desk yesterday. Is this really what I want to do? Go from a 20 minute commute to a 60 or 70 minute commute. Go from working with people I know, from environments I can work with in the middle of the night, from clients I have a good relationship with, from a friendly working atmosphere, to a cubicle farm, where everyone sits quietly at their desk, not interacting with people around them, working on faceless, distant client systems, that are as yet unknown to me.

These people I’ve been working with the past 3 years are my family. Even though I’ve almost never seen them outside work hours, spending 40 hours a week with these people has turned them into family. Family that I’m going to miss working with. Some of the clients I work with I know well enough to consider extended family in this analogy. I know who to call, and in many cases I’ve called them so many times I don’t even have to look up their phone number.

As I slowly pack up my belongings, it’s like I’m packing up my life. Separating bits of it into boxes, to be stored away for an indeterminate period of time. In less than two weeks, I’ll likely never see these people again. I’ll never again come home to this place I’ve lived the last three years. So many memories that will slowly drift away.

People will fade from reality into the mists of time. I’m going to miss them all – the annoying project managers, the incessant SDMs, the hapless users, the incompetent help desks, the colleagues that range from people to admire, to people that must surely struggle to find their way to work every day. They are the colour in this tapestry of life. A tapestry that will shortly be put away, incomplete, slowly unraveling.