The Last Day

When I first arrived at HRG, I was on crutches, had an IV port implanted in my upper left arm, and was recovering from a badly beaten ego. I was doing two intravenous doses a day. at 90 minutes each, of an antibiotic called Vancomycin, a.k.a. "the antibiotic of last resort." The crutches were so I could keep the weight off my left foot, from which I had just had a piece of bone removed where my doctors believed the source of my MRSA infection was alive and well and having parties in my bone marrow. The medicine was doing its damndest to try to kill the infection, or at the very least, force it to get some sleep. Lastly, the beating to my ego was inflicted by the strain of the past three months of trying to do a 90 hour a week job, please an implacable, insane and ignorant supervisor, and fight off a potentially fatal infection at the same time.

It was January of 2007. I had left my old job on the 6th and started at HRG on the 9th. At first it was just four or five hours a day, answering phones, entering data. Something, my sister told me, that would be easy, just right for me as I struggled to recover from my illness. And it was nice to have something to break up the tedium of watching that IV line leach its half-cure, half-poison into my arm.

Today is my last day at HRG, and while I'm definitely sad about it, it's also good to see how far I've come since that first day back in that sick and scary winter of '07. Since arriving here as a quasi-temp receptionist, I managed to be promoted to director of marketing communications, execute some truly fabulous branding work, build a dozen or so websites, and help a number of local and national not-for-profits do what they do even more successfully.

When I think about how damn sick I was, how long it took for me to get better, how the auto-immune souvenirs of that illness, while still sticking around, are so much better than they were, and above all, how it helped me to realize, through some great colleagues and clients, that my former boss at my old job was pretty much the only person I've ever met who didn't like me or the way I did my work. It is even more fulfilling that in the ensuing three years, she has totally gotten what she deserves. And so have I - I leave HRG with countless friends, the gratitude of my awesome clients, and a real sense of a job well done. Even better than that, I leave with faith in my potential -- that I know wherever I land, I will have a chance to do fulfilling work that is even better, at an even higher level, than the work I did here.

In the time I've spent here, it has allowed me - while still doing some great marketing work, learning new technologies, and seeing what life was like from the for-profit point of view - to take better care of myself, to lose 70 pounds, to handle health challenges, and to figure out what it is I want to do next. While working here, I learned my book would be published. I let go of a horrible person or two. I fulfilled a seven year dream of taking on a larger role at my temple. And I managed to learn that you don't have to stay in bad situations, no matter what sort of noble or faithful reasons you may have for hanging around. If the good in a bad scene is good enough, it will follow you on the path away from the negative and destructive. And if it doesn't, maybe it is really part of the bad.

So as I say so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu (to you and you and you) to my time here, to the little company that could, and to the sick and shattered person I was when I arrived, I look with faith towards a future where anything can happen. Where even, perhaps, I can make it happen for myself.