Perhaps that’s why it hurt so
When you left.
You had become
My guiding light
The bookends of my days
My Compass.Ever the captain,
I resumed my rightful
Place at the helm
Readjusted the sails
And set course for
A paradise of my own making.
–Sarah Clinton
So. I up and quit my job last month.
I had been at the company for about 13 months, a much shorter time than initially planned (given that my trajectory down the road was to step up as company Director of Communications). The funny thing is, I really loved my job.
It was incredibly demanding at times (and truthfully way too big for one person), but it also gave me a sense of purpose, I felt appreciated overall, and I felt that I was able to make a difference in my work. As the old saying goes, however, “people don’t leave jobs—they leave managers,” and that certainly held true for me.
So I’ll be the first to say that I don’t necessarily have the best luck with men (if you’ve followed my writing for very long, you can attest to this). Some of that is because I—a coach through and through—tend to see people’s potential, forgive mistakes, and assume that everyone I meet is generally trying his or her best from their own current level of consciousness.
December 6, 2017
You might be karma
For all the lips
I never kissed
As eyes streamed up above them.Love unrequited
Hurts so much more
From this vantage point.
–Sarah Clinton
December 6, 2017
It is easy to forget
That words have such power
Until our own
Are used against us.
–Sarah Clinton
December 6, 2017
I thought you were
But a dream.
Then, all too soon,
You were.
–Sarah Clinton
December 8, 2017
And after a while
You learn that even your refuge
May soon serve
As your prison.
–Sarah Clinton
Signed, sealed, delivered—following my brain instead of my heart this time. Looks like your part in my story is over, love.
December 13, 2017
D,
I never got the chance to read it to you, but there’s a Warsan Shire poem that beautifully captures how I felt about you when we were seeing each other. It’s probably neither here nor there for us now, but I suppose sometimes everyone needs to know that despite our faults, someone out there would happily continue to choose us every day.
My parents met in college in the early 1980s. Smitten, they were soon engaged and then married when my mother was 19 and my father was 22. For the last semester of his pastoral program, Dad had to do missionary work in France; my mother, however, remained in Nashville. This was of course before the internet, and long-distance calls certainly weren't cheap.
I want to lay my head on your chest and just listen to you talk. It had been a long time since I’d been that intimate with anyone.
I miss hearing about your day. I miss the way your eyes would light up when you’d talk about something you’re really passionate about. I miss your eyes lighting up when you’d talk that way about me.
