It hasn't yet been a week since I lost my job but the hours drag on so slowly it feels like months. I want to smack the clock to get it going again.
The feeling's so wretched, the nerves still raw, getting more so. There's a knot in my stomach; I feel nauseated sometimes. Worse yet, I keep replaying the whole, awful episode in my head: over and over. Every time it cuts just a bit more deeply.
I compared the feeling to grief a couple days ago, only half-jokingly. Turns out it does bear a strong resemblance to that awful, permanent sense of loss. Eight and a half years (a little more than) is a decent stretch of time, long enough to have made memories - good and bad.
Like the snowman a co-worker made last winter, after a nasty blizzard left us all shoveling off our cars at the same time, the parking lot so deep with snow I had trouble backing out of my space. That was one of many times I was thankful my commute was all of ten minutes, on a bad day.
Like the wedding and baby showers, the gifts and the food and the goofyness.
The mixed bag that always was the staff party - not officially a holiday party, not officially not.
INTERMINABLE STAFF TRAINING SESSIONS!
Shared stories of wacko patrons.
The time someone pooped on the floor in the large print section...
When a young man had a seizure and I called 911 for him. Parmedics carried him out on a stretcher. I heard he was fine, thankfully.
I can't help thinking of all I did off the clock, the times I filled in gladly, using my own money and materials when I felt I should step up and make a contribution.
The happy and the sad, the friendship and anger.
The all of it.
Lost and gone.
Hard to believe it's over. Harder yet to recall that terrible day, over and over. Maybe I'm a sap but I don't believe in treating people this way, especially not when it's known that person's going through truly horrible, gut-wrenching times. It was known but disregarded, not for the first time. More's the pity for them, too. Having no mercy is by far worse than being the recipient of someone else's lack of mercy.
For the soul, that is.
My consolation is Karma will act, as She always does, evening the playing field. Things will settle down as they're supposed to; all parties will receive according to what was given. In the meantime, though, it's a day by day trial. So saddening.
But I won't let it stop me from believing libraries are good and right, defenders and repositories of information. It isn't the same anymore; it's evolving into something different but still it's the library. And I won't leave the profession just yet. They may have to pull me out kicking and screaming. Or, more likely, writing strongly-worded essays.
Day by day by day. It will get better. Eventually.
