Cheers, boys and girls. Good tidings, etc. Today was my last day at the grocery store. It was, all things considered, a pretty mellow fuckin’ day.

I had spent the last like three weeks imagining what I was going to have to say about my last day, and my time working at The Grocery Store, and I had lots of ideas, including one little essay about working in kitchens that I think I’ll probably still end up working on, but now that the day’s come I’m just about all out of ideas, and I can’t remember any of the good ones that I had these past few weeks.

I still haven’t really figured out how I feel about the whole thing. The way I’ve settled on describing it to people is that it was particularly bad timing it lots of ways for The Grocery Store to start doing the things they started doing, particularly some of the more personal-feeling attacks. A buddy was offering me a pretty compelling job, The Grocery Store was putting me through a pretty brutal schedule, I had a lot of personal stuff still going on (this has been documented here, for you, kind reader), and then they decided that the best thing to do would be to cut my hours and start treating me like I’m some kind of a bum, when they had made me the employee of the month like two months before.

It feels so much less dramatic than every other time I’ve quit my job. Partly because it was less dramatic, but also because it just plain old feels like I’m not as behind the wheel of this one as I have been in the past. In the past, quitting my job has felt like I was turning off the highway into a field, ripping the wheel off the car and letting God figure out how and where the ride was gonna take me. This time feels a lot more like taking a gentle, banked turn off the interstate onto a state highway that, as far as I can tell, is gonna get me the same place the Interstate will, but with a lot fewer semis, and a lot prettier views.

Does that all mean I’m getting older? More mature? Or does it mean I’m just getting tired, running out of steam? Who knows anymore.

I like all the people that I used to work with. I know that I’m not very good at expressing that. Nonetheless, it’s true. I’m sad to not get to see them anymore. It’s scary starting a new job. Even if I’ve met the guys already, and I’m pretty sure I’ll like them all well enough, I like the people I used to work with, and I’m gonna be bummed to not get to hang out with them anymore.

I’m almost tearing up here, how queer is that?

I wish that I had tried harder to become actual friends with more of the people in the store. They were all very cool, with basically no exceptions, except of course, me. And I think that that is the lesson that I am choosing to take from the emotions welling up as I sit here typing this: that I should endeavor not to be the guy that is the least cool, and furthest from making friends, in the store again. I’m a naturally pretty aloof guy. Distant. Tough shelled, etc. But I don’t need to be. And, truth be told, I don’t think that I even really need to be distant from the store again, either. I still have reason to be in that neck of the woods, at least from time to time, so I may as well, you know, be in that neck of the woods, stop in and say hi every now and then, etc.

I suppose this all reveals how self centered I am. Oh well, this is something I’m used to. Perhaps later on I will be able to handle being a ‘people person’ a bit better, eh? Cheers, boys and girls. Cheers.