An odd coincidence occurred to me this morning. About 24 years ago, in August 2000, I got my first “real” job in at FleetBoston1 Financial in Waltham, Massachusetts. On August 2024, I lost my most recent job.
Although my logical brain knows that coincidences like this don’t really mean anything, I’ve always been fascinated by them. One type of coincidence that fascinates me most is when I realize that something which was once a big presence in my life has now been out of my life for longer than it was in it.
For example, including my temp time (I was an admin for an outgoing executive for about 8 months before being hired as a writer in the communications department), I spent about 12 years working for Bank of America and its predecessor companies. This year, I surpassed 12 years since my time at the bank ended.
Time Reflections
Lots of these types of realizations have occurred as I’ve grown older: when I had been out of school longer than I was in it; when I had been divorced longer than I had been married; when I had been memorializing my dad’s passing longer than I had known him.
Okay, that got grim fast. It doesn’t only happen with bad things like death, divorce, and job loss—I promise. But those are understandably big, memorable moments.
I’m guessing I’m not the only one who does this, though I haven’t really mentioned it to many people before. I’d be curious to know who else notices and reflects on dates and time periods like this in their own lives.
I don’t really know why I do this. I guess it’s some sort of defense mechanism for dealing with change. If I can look back and see that my life didn’t end when some big change happened, then I know that whatever is happening now won’t end it either. I’ll have to ask my therapist about it at our next session.
For whatever reason, my brain tends to latch onto moments and eras of my life, and then revisit and reflect on them years later. Which means that ten years from now, I’m sure I’ll be looking back and saying, “Wow, I’ve been longer away from that job than I was in it.”
I wonder what things will be like at that point.
Divergence and Departure
Many people are familiar with Robert Frost’s image of two roads that “diverged in a yellow wood.” A lot of people forget the later part of the poem, where he mentions “how way leads on to way.”
Occasionally, we see the Frost setup in real life with two clear paths, each equally acceptable and alluring. However, most of our divergences and departures aren’t a simple choice between two options. Sometimes there are many, even infinite, options. Other times, there’s only one option—or if more options do exist, we’re not the one who gets to choose.
(I’m postponing commentary about determination and free will…for now.)
Far be it from me to try and improve on Frost, but a more realistic wood has paths coming and going in all directions. And there’s other people on them. Sometimes our paths merge for awhile, and then they move away again. Sometimes we cut through the raw forest, ignoring the paths altogether.
And sometimes we see other people walking ahead of us, or on a different path somewhere off to the side. Maybe we just get a glimpse, or maybe we walk in tandem for a bit on our separate paths going roughly the same direction for awhile.
If you happen to see me out there, please wave and say, “Hi!”
Note
1 Or maybe it was still BankBoston then? I don’t remember the exact timing. It took awhile for the signs to change.