Endings

It seems that my life has been very much about endings lately, large and small. The end of my schooling at the University I've been at for the last four years. The end of my marriage. The end of my relationship with Darcy-dog. Today I experienced one more such ending. Today was the last day I worked on the campus library.

I started working there almost three years ago when we received a shockingly large personal property tax bill which would not be covered by our regular salaries. My coworkers were generally genial. I made one of my few friends there- a friend who, without her over the past few months, I don't know if I could have survived sanely.

This job kept the bills paid and the roof over my head for the last three years. When ex lost his job, I worked more hours there. When I didn't receive summer funding last year, this job kept the money coming in. When ex left me with no warning, this job allowed me to pay bills by myself that he would generally have helped to pay. I have worked there this summer while looking for other employment. My schedule has been moldable enough that I have been able to take days off to finish papers or other assignments, to skip out for job interviews, and to work more when I needed the money. I have spent most of my weekends there for about two years.

This job has been more stable than pretty much anything else in my life. While my teaching assistantships changed from semester to semester, as did my classes, and my husband increasingly withdrew from our lives, this job was there week after week, semester after semester. My boss knew the details of my life and might even have helped me land my next job- if the job I interviewed for this week goes through. A quietly kind and somewhat eccentric man, he always sent new library books my way if he thought they were of my interest, and did his best to get me hours when I needed them. Another co-worker helped me find a divorce attorney and proof-read my dissertation prospectus. They've been a kind of family.

Today as my last shift ended, I walked slowly to take everything in. As I pushed my cart into the book depository I reminded myself that it would be the last time I did that. As I felt the breeze caused by the environmental controls, as I wheeled my empty cart back to the front, as I replaced the card key with the others, I kept thinking, "this is going to be the last time."

I left the office, looking back at my completely cleaned desk- the desk where I discovered Spoon in launchcast, the desk where I distractedly paged through so many donated volumes and conducted so many conversations about the downsides of graduate life with my coworkers- I thought to myself that I am tired of partings.