Cycling Home
While cycling home tonight I found my thoughts filled with the girl I have worked with for the last three years, who spends her last day working with me tomorrow. Quite bizarrely, a conversation from “The Day The Earth Stood Still” is also swimming around my head. I think it's the scene where the scientist's father talks to the alien, and postulates that it's only on the precipice that we are really alive – that we change, that we grow.
Tomorrow is going to be one of those days.
I will lose not just a talented co-worker, but also a wonderful friend. We have shared all manner of madcap thoughts, conversations, and idiotic adventures over the last few years – and as much as we might like to think the internet will support our continued friendship, we both know the chance is slight. We come from different worlds – different backgrounds, and we are a generation apart.
It comes down to us now. The technology provides us with the easiest means in history to reach out and say hello – to ask after each other – to stay in touch; and yet I know it will be me that forgets to reply, that forgets to look out for her.
Maybe this is my precipice? Maybe this is my opportunity to change?
I will miss her. Not the coffee, or the cookies, or the home baked cakes. I'll miss the sense of humour, the snarky comments, the stories, the rolled eyes, the disarming smile, the friend. Mostly the friend.