Cutting the Cord

This first morning of 2007 I was met with not one single new email. I thought it strange and made sure my account was working properly. After several different types of tests, I have determined that Smith had me on an automatic shut off schedule. I no longer have a Smith College email address. Woe is me.

It's not even the hassle of setting up a new email, or sending out one gigantic bulk email to everyone with a new address that has me upset. It's the change. It is the passing of something entirely symbolic of a time in my life that is now over.

Those who know me might mistakenly think that I am a woman who embraces, and perhaps even covets change. A quick inventory of my life would reveal many moves, many risks taken, many new paths courageously forged and a seeming willingness to leap over the edge again and again.

It is partly true. I have never been afflicted with that condition known as "fear of change". At least not on the level that it prevents me from making new plans, or uprooting my life and everything I know in order to pursue a goal. But the whole truth is that once I am done riding the wave of change, and find myself washed up on a new shore, I lay there shivering and moaning for days. I have to grieve what is past, and I feel the need to grieve fully over every path ended.

And so, this morning when the realization hit me that I had actually been finally and completely severed from Smith as a current student, I felt the grief rise up from my belly and wrap itself loosely around my throat. I expect three days of brooding, brow-furrowing type behavior from myself before I can get both feet fully onto the next path. I wonder if I was moody and pensive in those first days after the exodus from the womb?

(Oil painting "Letting Go" by Rebecca Gottesman, can be found here)