I’ve never had an anniversary that seems to mean something different every time it passes, but the day I booked off work sick, which would turn out to be my last day, is certainly just that. Tomorrow marks year seven. The first one to pass since it all ended. No more going back. No more pretending to go back. No more playing dress-up in my uniforms for appointments as if it meant nothing would end up changing. It’s over. 

I don’t know what I feel. I don’t even know what I want to feel.

I love my family and my dog. I love my friends. I love my new budding existence and the calm it will bring. I love that it feels like some of that adolescent possibility is back. But I’m still going to cry. I still feel really sad. Is this really it? Nothing more than some paperwork assigns my career and its identity to my past? I’m forever hurt by something I liked and chose, something that I’ll never be able to do again or identify as and this is how it ends? 

I never hated my job, nor did I want to stop doing it; I got sick. I hated being sick more and fixing that meant I had to admit it was my work causing it. 

What am I supposed to feel? Happy anniversary. Here’s to day one.