On feeling wanted

I love working here.

Funny how this works, but the process of leaving is making it clear how good I am at my job and how much the people here value me and will miss me. It’s such an amazing feeling.

See, I’m the sort of person who focuses on what I’m doing wrong, what I can do better, the ways in which I fall short. When people give me compliments, I brush them off. But then I had to write out a description of my job responsibilities so my boss could hunt for a replacement, and the list of duties went to two pages. And then last week my boss showed me some of the resumes she was getting, and talking about some of the people she’d interviewed when I first came on board, and I started realizing there were things I brought to the job that I didn’t even think to put on the list, qualities I take for granted that are actually pretty rare.

And if that weren’t enough, the RA is throwing me a goodbye party (and, trust me, this is not an office that throws parties!) and they invited my parents and brother. It just… it feels like I’m really valued here, and for once I can’t argue that I don’t deserve it or I’m secretly not good enough. I’m right to be proud of myself.

This was my first real job out of college, and I learned a lot from it, but this lesson is the one I really hope sticks with me.