Last day

“I think I’m going to buy some of those diet chips”, Diane says.

I prop my bare feet on the edge of her desk and cross my ankles. “Make sure you read the bag carefully. Some of those diet and sugar free foods can cause anal leakage.”

She throws back her head and laughs, the sound echoing down the corridor. I smile and shake my head as she launches into a story about a woman that had to have her asshole reconstructed, due to her penchant for taking the dirt road. I’m going to miss these daily dicking-off fests more than I originally thought. And I’m going to miss her.

I remember the first time I sat in this chair, in her horribly messy office, wearing a brightly striped sweater, black skirt and black old lady pumps. I was a nineteen year old kid with a month old baby at home and I had no idea what I was doing. Diane sat me down, explained the job, spent a half hour gossiping and then showed me around the suite.

I immediately wanted to work here, not even considering the corporation as a whole...just this little area where the work space rang with laughter and the halls smelled of coffee and someone’s breakfast burrito. It was my first “real” job.

But though the woman who hired me is my supervisor, she’s never been just a boss. From the day I interviewed until this moment, this last day we get to sit here together as employee and employer, she’s also been my friend, mother and psychiatrist.

She cosigned for my first loan to help me establish credit, she made cakes on my birthdays and sat drinking wine with me all night on her living room floor. Just recently, when I had to go to the doctor for what was apparently vertigo, she came, without asking, in sweats and tennis shoes on her day off. Just in case I needed someone to hold my hand and drive me home.

She’s lectured me, made me listen to the same stories over and over again, occasionally irritated me so much that I wanted to scream...but I love her. She gave me a job, she gave me a chance and she’s continuously put up with all of my tardiness, grouchiness and immaturity.

And now, after weeks of wondering and waiting, the day has finally come. The transition from old job to new will be complete tomorrow, when I pack up the last box and they cart it two blocks away. I’ve been excited about taking a step up the career ladder, about more money and more opportunities to grow and learn. I’ve been excited about my new chair and my new title, about rubbing elbows with presidents and COO’s. Excited and a little terrified, but not sad. Not until now. Not until it really hit me that in order to grow up and move up, I’ll have to give up a few things too.

This is the last time I’ll sit around with no makeup on and a frizzy ponytail, barefoot and relaxed in the privacy of an office that’s more like home. The last time I’ll dance on tiptoe around her door and primp in front of her mirror to make her laugh. The last time I’ll drink coffee and shoot the shit for an hour in the mornings. The last time I’ll wear flip flops and leggings, play games when no one is looking and close my door for an hour with a current bestseller.

And perhaps the saddest thing of all, right up there with saying good bye to her and other coworkers I’ve come to think of as family - this is the last time I’ll sit at this desk and write.

Lakeside reflection

I spend the winter months praying for summer to come quickly. Spring is beautiful here, but it’s merely a pleasant stop on the way to a more satisfying destination. I watch the trees turn green, white blooms float to the pavement, and I start counting down the days until I can take that first dive into the waves only yards from my door.

As always I am impatient and before the chill has left the water completely, I’m running down those weathered planks at full speed, bracing myself for the shock.

Summer weekends begin and end in the water. Before the sleep can be rubbed from our eyes, Hannah and I are shoveling down breakfast and tugging on swimsuits. She gets coated with sunscreen, dancing impatiently from foot to foot, chattering about jumping off the tall platform.

“I can do it all by myself, mom. I can swim without a lifejacket too! Please, can I?”

From the moment she steps outside, she turns as dark as an Indian. It’s in her blood, in fact. Dark brown eyes, brown hair and brown skin with just a hint of her white bottom peeking from the edges of her swimsuit – the opposite of her naturally fair mother, who has to work extra hard to become nothing more than golden and still burns her nose every other weekend.

Appearances notwithstanding, she’s a summer child just like I was – pouting as the sunset signals it’s time to go home and marching, red eyed and exhausted, up the hill with water dripping from her hair, wet feet squeaking loudly in rubber flip-flops. Stomping up the back stairs and onto the porch, she strips down and hangs her suit over the tall chair, our towels immediately following. Then, with a sudden burst of energy she runs into the house, the white parts of her skin glowing like another swimsuit and, giggling, announces to the household that she’s naked.

After bath and dinner, bed time comes quickly. She’s asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow and, though I no longer run bare assed and giggling through the kitchen (at least when people are home), I copy her night routine down to the open mouthed breathing. The sun can be draining, no matter your age.

And we do it all again the next day.

Instead of doing cannon ball after cannon ball and bouncing up and down on a tube full of other children, I spend as much time as possible floating on a lounger. But now I’m the voice that controls the mayhem rather than the one behind it. Chasing down reluctant children to apply more sunscreen, diving in to rescue this or that float, shooing away the stupid goose, toting coolers and arranging towels, docking boats and giving Jet Ski rides – that’s what I traded (most of) my cannon balls for. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

All grown up, my family and friends surround me like aptly placed buoys, clutching cold beers in colorful koozies. Their children run with mine and we laugh, reminded of old feuds and excitements that are being played out all over again, right before our eyes.

I’ve spent every summer since the age of two on this lake, in this little cove. It’s where I learned to swim, with an old fashioned belt around my waist. It’s where I held my first sparkler on the Fourth of July and where I nearly drowned learning to ski. It’s where I lost my best friend in the world and where I sat and cried every evening, watching the waves wash up on shore, until I found the courage to keep going without him. It’s where I celebrated every single birthday until the age of 16, when I became too cool to have parties.

I’m happy that I get to watch Hannah grow up walking the same banks, making similar but new memories with her generation of our family. I’m happy every time we’re gathered around the gazebo with our Papa, watching him smile and pick on her the way he’s always done, with every grandchild. I feel lucky that I have a place that’s so special to me and I hope that, twenty years from now, she’ll be looking back, just like this, and feeling lucky too.