In fine est veritas

Note:  I readily admit I am a sucker for a nice Latin phrase, even though I've never had any education in the language.  So, forgive the indulgence.  

It's been a relatively long time since I've written anything.  I think that happens to me every once in a while.  Things just get so very hectic, and I am getting older, and the sum total of those two things effectively means that my life consists of three things now:

1. Go to work
2. Recovering from work
3. Doing all of the other things I didn't do because of #'s 1 & 2 (also known as "the weekend")

I get that the above is not healthy.  I also know that knowledge in the absence of action is little more than trivia.  I am trying though, and as this is October, a month of change, some reflection is in order.  

I've written countless times over the years about October, and how things in my life have changed dramatically during the month.  On the surface, we all can view the external changes of October as being a kind of slow death...trees change and drop their leaves...critters seem to disappear...the weather begins to change in ways that start to make the outside intolerable...we becomes shut-ins within our own homes.

In the end though, October has its own truth.  What seems like a slow death is actually staging for a re-birth in the future.  This is more where I am now.  Probably for the first time in my life I am facing a very big change where I am neither anxious nor apprehensive about it.  That says a lot.  I'm not, by the way, facing any kind of health or otherwise existential life crisis.  I'm sure those things are in my future...they are in all of our futures actually...but not just now.  

This doesn't mean that my life is a 24/7/365 joy-ride.  I will still not get enough sleep.  I will still over-work.  I will still feel the weight of crappy things happening around me.  But now, just maybe, there is a kind of Spring Season on the horizon.

Speaking of October, this past Tuesday (October 13th) was an anniversary of sorts: 10 years since I was involuntarily retired from Prudential Financial.  Not that I was counting (well, I was...), but I ended up leaving with 27 years and about 48 weeks of service.  I know that people lose jobs all the time these days, but that knowledge didn't make it any easier.  A few thoughts now, 10 years in the rear-view mirror:

• Treated Well...I was treated well by the company from a financial perspective.  My severance package and being treated as a retiree allowed me to find new employment that would pay far less, which turned out to be very much needed.  10 years out and I am still making half of what I did during my last year at Pru.
• Treated (not so) Well...To this very day I remain disappointed by those folks that I worked with for a very long time who didn't reach out to me.  For some, it was as if we were all living in an Amish town and I was being "shunned".  This includes the person I reported to at the time.  However, there were folks who did, and I am deeply grateful for every call and email of theirs all these years later.
• Surprised...On some level I was not surprised.  I had survived similar "Cullings" in the past, so it doesn't take a degree in philosophy to realize that my number may come up in the future. Knowing it could and then actually having it happen though were two entirely different things.  When you work for a place for that long, well, it becomes part of who you are at a very deep, personal level.  I still occasionally have dreams where I am in the Prudential Scranton office.
• It Was for the Best...I am a better person in a couple of different ways for having gone through this process.  I know that for a fact, and important growth sometimes carries a high price.  That doesn't mean that I am grateful for it happening.  There is something deeply flawed about a society that features this kind of thing happening on a regular basis, and these days it happens all too frequently.  Companies want loyalty and commitment from employees, but they don't offer it in return.  Such a thought is even more salient when someone has close to three decades of loyalty and commitment.  We truly do live a disposable society.  

There have been 5 other employers since my "retirement", including my current one.  This current employer, for the record, is the last.  At some point in the not-too-distant future I am getting off the train.  

For the record October is now more than half over.