Sad, in a Good Way--or, the End of an Era

    Melancholy day. Cold and clear outside, quiet in the office. Prehaps it allows too much time for thinking.
     But the thinking's not all bad. For instance, I've ruminated on the myriad conversations of which I've been a part recently, both planned and unexpected. I wrote about one in an earlier post, but there have been several since then. Some fairly short (and no, JW, I wasn't asleep unless it was really late, so you could've called again on Sunday), and some quite long. Some about nothing in particular, or about topics across the board, and some more specific. K--, for instance, was there at just the right time. She didn't "say just the right thing," in the sense of platitudes or a panacea, but she did say some things that I needed to hear. It was equal parts comfort and [gentle, friendly] kick in the ass. And after we hung up I sat for quite a while with the phone in my hand and a smile across my face, wondering how in the hell I've managed to become so amazingly lucky at this unlikely point in my life.
     I met with a couple of guys yesterday to talk about my immediate future. I don't want to get into it in any detail, but I will say that for something very intimidating and anticipated with copious worry, the reality was much more agreeable. It really wasn't bad. (Thanks for that, K.)
     My parents are coming down for a short visit tomorrow. They're worried about me, I assume, even though they're not saying it. I have a sinus infection and sound like death but they seem to think it's all part of the same deal. Whatever. We'll have dinner tomorrow night and breakfast on Thursday and they'll head back to the home state feeling better about me (and a few hundred dollars lighter, I'd guess).
     To end, a poem, from Mary Oliver's New and Selected Poems, called "The Journey":

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.