Resignation

Cemeteries are like resignation letters. They call out, headstones begging to be read as if someone were leaving a place of employment and on to the next adventure. They’re an index of cards, letters written to remind future generations of who once was there and where we will inevitably be.

I’ve been thinking a lot about resignation letters, the gilded words I’ll type out to signify the end of one thing and the start of the next. There’s poetry to these moments in my mind because, without a doubt, the heartache of leaving is eclipsed by the joy of newness. In some cases, the leaving is a long time coming, the moments of treading water having finally come to their conclusive end. In others, the departures are more sudden, like a dive from a 3m board above the water, gracefully, elegant, and…well, I’d be prone to bellyflop, so perhaps we’ll move on from that.

Regardless, headstones and resignation letters signify an end and hearken to beginnings. In the case of our human mortality, we know that from the moment of our birth, we will face the sweet darkness and embrace death. It’s written in our bones, our cells remind us of it daily, and we have the visceral gut punch of the news to highlight that not all death is noble or just. In the case of resignation, we look to our triumphs and tragedies, the stories we can tell of the mountains climbed, the obstacles moved, and the monies we’ve made on behalf of the oligarch who employed us. And yet, I feel there’s more to our stories.

Every change leads to something. Every resignation leads to the next stories, every chapter to its inevitable partner in pages. Even death leads to something, regardless of our presence, to witness it or not. In the picture above, what was established in 1777 in the Old Cemetery of Buckland, Massachusetts, is a testament to the people who made this little hamlet what it is today. They’re the index of human progress, a foundation of kith, kin, and country that we build upon.

I’ll keep this moment short this evening, having stewed over this for most of the day. I don’t know what to write when I move to the next adventure. Perhaps I’ll call out a challenge to my peers, reminding them that they’re more than just the chattel to line the coffers of the cowardly oligarchs. Perhaps I’ll challenge the idea of work/life balance and the insistence on giving your all for the sake of the few to whom you’re but a number. Perhaps I’ll further insist that for all the money you can spend on calling yourself “the most ethical place to work,” the stench of complacency, misguided understanding, and usurious demagoguery actively work against these hypocritical ideals.

Perhaps the tombstones haven’t been entirely formed yet. They can be delivered in gilded marble, words crafted with utmost care not to offend the senses. Perhaps just acknowledging my place and time is enough, that calling folks to account is more bitter than sweet, and that I’d leave with my head high rather than my heart burning with anger. Perhaps there’s more good than I can find in the moment; after all, I survived the cull.

Ah, but these are the words of the contemplative, aren’t they? They’re words designed to push and pull, to extract and convince the mind that the account balances that changed biweekly were all that truly mattered for the moment you were there. Setting aside the rigid understanding of morality, justice, and ethics demanded that I, of all people, settle for the indignity of a biweekly bribe to ensure my silence. After all, I have obligations to attend to my children, lifestyle, and travel.

I don’t know how to end this period of my life. I don’t know how to take the seesaw and level it just-so. I don’t know how to rectify the base hypocrisy to the unparalleled potential of technology. And this, perhaps, is the challenge in resignation: to determine, after a course of time, that the good I can do at the moment, in this place, has run its course and that there must be something else.

I’m not as wise as I wish to be, as learned as I need, or as craven as, perhaps, others want me to be. But I am someone who has thought long and hard about my tombstone and epitaph, my resignation from this moment in life and assuming the mantle of the next season, and I want it to count for something.

Perhaps you, too, have something to write, to leave behind in your story’s trails of dust and tears. I can only remind you that you’re not alone and that each word carries the weight of thousands of generations before you as they ascended to glory. May you find the words to write, the courage of your convictions, and the next great adventure to embark upon.

May it ever be so.