I spent the past week in California attending a three-day work “summit”. What we had ascended was lost on me, but it was a welcome opportunity to catch up with colleagues, and with family and friends during the off-hours. It was my first visit to the Bay Area since I left two months ago, and I experienced the expected feelings of disorientation and dislocation. But even more striking was the new perspective the trip gave me on the lives of those around me.
In my experience, the pace of change in your life and the lives of those in your immediate vicinity are easily overlooked, underappreciated, or taken for granted. It’s a natural consequence of the state of immersion in which we live. As a returning visitor, I felt acutely conscious of time, distance, and change. In just one week, I briefly touched upon the lives of:
(D and C), about to move into their new home;
(M and B), living in the contained whirlwind of caring for
a newborn;
(G and C) preparing to relocate to San Francisco;
(D, N, S, A, and E) adjusting to their new life in the Bay Area;
(B) moving on to an amazing new opportunity;
(J) beginning to plan his next move;
my many longtime co-workers adjusting to what we have become
as a company, a department, and a team.
Perhaps you're all aware of how amazing your lives are in such different ways, and becoming a skipping stone from New York has jarred me into a belated realization of how much I appreciate being a part of your changing lives, even from a distance. “So good to see you again” was how I was greeted by the doorman each night at the hotel, and it became a fitting summation of each day I spent with you.
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