I almost hit a wild turkey on my drive in to work this morning.

The sky was clear and bright, the day was already warm. It’s been very warm here lately, like we’ve bypassed spring and run straight into summer and I’m not really a fan. I spent far too long this morning trying to figure out what to wear, what would be office appropriate, weather appropriate and took into account the fact that the air conditioning over my desk wasn’t fully functional (it’s strange – if you round the corner near my desk, the humidity hits you – the air just doesn’t work there).

After my hurried rush around the house getting ready, getting in the car to drive to work was a moment of calm – a moment of calm because for that time I’m on the road I didn’t need to do laundry, pack lunches, find clothes, apply mascara, none of that. All I had to do was drive.

I was driving, the radio turned up to some crappy morning radio show. They do a lot of talking in the mornings and this morning they were talking about Lindsay Lohan’s parents and how apparently the Lohans, shining example of quality parenting, are now charging by the minute to talk to people. Nice. Also, how is this newsworthy?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a turkey scurry across the street.

Why did the turkey cross the road?

To test Sarah’s reaction time.

Then another turkey started its journey across. This one didn’t have a lot of room to spare like its buddy. This one required I slam on my brakes so as not to hit it.

You should never brake for anything smaller than a dog.

Is a turkey bigger or smaller than a dog? A turkey is pretty tall. If you hit a turkey can you throw it in the back of you car and take it home?

And within seconds the episode was over. Onward!

Stop to breathe in the sun rising. Cars whizzing past as I rolled down my window to snap a photograph. Realize that it’s not enough to watch the sun rise in my rear view mirror each day – that sometimes I need to stop and appreciate it. How beautiful. How brilliant and perfect and magical it is to see the sun rise.

Onward.

A cup of coffee and merging on to the highway. At this point in my commute the highway is teeming with travelers, those commuting like me, and semis, so many semis. I know you need the trucking industry to deliver damn near everything, but while I commute, I don’t like them. Not quite fast enough to keep with the traffic. While passing a series of trucks, a woman in a Jaguar behind me in the left lane impatiently surveyed the traffic. She passed me on the right, giving me a rolled eye angry face and a flip of the middle finger… before immediately getting stuck behind the cars that I had been trailing, the cars that had prevented me from going faster. I chuckled. Her impatience, her little Nascar maneuver and yet she was no further ahead. A mile down the road I laughed even harder when a car purposely cut Jaguar McCrankyPants off and then slowed…way…down.

Miles later, I’m in my parking spot. Keys in hand, bags slung over shoulder. A chirp of the door lock as I exit my car and venture into the building.

Ready to start another day.

In May, my job was eliminated and even though I had been tremendously frustrated by the experience towards the end and thought I’d prepared myself for the inevitable layoff, it still hit like a ton of bricks. Even though I wasn’t in love with the job, it was a job, and it was my job, and change is yucky.

And then true to fashion for the Company, they realized how much work I was doing that they couldn’t immediately farm out. They hired me on a part-time/contract basis and on I soldiered, doing what I was used to doing.

I continued with the contract work through the summer while interviewing for jobs.

I continued after I started my new job.

I continued even after I realized how tired I was working a full day, coming home and working some more.

I knew that they would be transitioning my role, that it was fading and that they’d hired someone who could do the same thing and more, but in house. So it wasn’t like I thought it was a permanent situation. Hell, I didn’t want to work there forever anymore.

And then.

At the beginning of January, I tried to log on to my computer to get some work done. And couldn’t. A call to technical support told me my account was disabled and I left a voice mail message for the woman I reported to. The next day she called me back to say: “Oh, December 31 was your last day. I forgot to tell you.”

So, I guess I’m done.

I sent my materials back, and with very little fanfare it’s over and done and after ten years of working for the Company (whose name I am still not mentioning because it’s not nice), it’s over.

And while I have to say: it was good while it lasted and I am grateful for the part time work to hold me over while I searched for and found a job, I find it amazing to believe that ten years of service and hard work doesn’t warrant more courtesy than an “Oops, I forgot.”

I guess I should be so grateful, in this economy, to have had a job that I would happily excuse bad behavior but instead I am left with an odd feeling: I am relieved to have had the experience, I am relieved to be saying goodbye to them at a time when I saw it coming and I didn’t need them, and yet I have this bad taste in my mouth of how is there so little regard for the PEOPLE in an organization that a little courtesy didn’t seem to register on one’s radar long enough to actually follow through with it.

It is what it is.

Because ultimately the end result is this: I have work. I now have a little more free time that I was ready to have. I don’t have to come home and start another shift of work with their projects.

It’s all good, right?

Yes. It really is.

Wishing they’d handled it differently surely doesn’t make it so. Feeling that I deserved more kindness at the closure doesn’t make it happen. And since I haven’t invented a time machine and surely they haven’t either, it can’t be re-done, undone, or changed.

It is what it is.

And so it goes and so it’s done.

And life goes on.