So long, and thanks for all the blue crabs!

Yesterday was my last day of work. I was about a week and a half short of living and working at the lab for two years, though if you count the three months I spent there one summer as an undergrad, that puts me over the two year mark. This was my first job out of college, and my first real job with yearly salary and paid leave and benefits and the whole deal. there were some good times (my paper getting published) and some bad times (getting my paper published), but overall it was a great experience.

I hadn't thought there was anyone in particular that I would miss. I didn't get as close to anyone there as I had gotten to my friends in college, and my closest friend at the lab had already left in May. Yet when I stopped by this morning to turn in a separation/termination form, I started getting a little teary-eyed as some of the students who saw me said final goodbyes and wished me luck. I probably should have said more to them, but I made a hasty escape once the tears started threatening; I didn't want to cry in front of anyone who wouldn't cry for me. And I don't think any of them would have cried for me.

The sadness may not come from missing anyone in particular, but missing the place. It was home for two years, it was familiar and known, it was comfortable, and now it's a memory. I don't know when I'll go back, if ever. I cried a little on my 8-hour drive back to my parents'. It was something on the radio that set me off, but I don't remember what song... it was probably something embarrassing, anyway.

Somewhere in Connecticut, it started drizzling, but it was still perfectly sunny where the sun was setting in the west. For about 10 minutes, I had a perfect view of a huge, brilliant, full double rainbow from the highway. I was kicking myself for leaving my camera somewhere in the great big pile that was the back seat of my car. I suppose if I had been bolder I might have pulled over on the side of the highway to fish out my camera (as I contemplated this, I saw a sign telling me "Pull over only for emergencies" and debated with myself whether or not my need to take a picture was an emergency), but I decided it was a bad idea. I really wanted a picture of the rainbow (a fitting sign, perhaps, in my sadness at moving), but alas, it will exist now only as a memory.

On the bright side, I will soon be moving to Hawaii, the land of "liquid sunshine" and rainbows. I expect many pictures of double rainbows to come.