A lot can change in a year.
January 19, 2023 was the last day of my Google life as I knew it, though of course I was blissfully unaware of that fact. Although it’s been a year, I vividly remember the day because it was a really, really, REALLY good day.
I’d returned to the office physically in September for the first time since March 2020, but my kids kept taking turns getting sick so I largely worked from home in December to spare my teammates from the germs. After a hectic quarter-end filled with contract deadlines and finally emerging from kid-illness-whack-a-mole, I was back on track to my normal office routine in January and SO happy about it. That week in particular I was super productive, catching up on outstanding longer term projects and lower priority to-dos in addition to a behemoth renewal I was spending time on. I started the day by meeting with my manager (and received a supportive “well done!” for my positive update, along with encouragement to leave a little early given the late hours I’d put in earlier in the week), enjoyed a delicious lunch with 2 teammates in the cafe I used to visit daily pre-pandemic but hadn’t been to in years (and got teary-eyed upon seeing the familiar faces of my 2 favorite salad bar staff for the first time in so long!), serendipitously snagged an appointment for the first chair massage I’d gotten in over 3 years (using only a few of the 880 massage credits I’d accrued), and stayed a bit later than usual to organize all the things.
I was thinking to myself during my whole walk down Greenwich Street as I headed toward the train that evening how truly grateful I was, and how after all the stress of the entire pandemic and the many health challenges for our family in 2022, that it really felt like a happy homecoming to be back in the office. In fact, I remember saying the words “it feels so good to be back” aloud to myself on the sidewalk — and then immediately chuckled afterwards because it felt like a super cheesy sitcom thing to do.
The sweetness with which that day — my last “real” day as a Googler — ended was a stark and bitter contrast to the news I awoke to the next morning. The timing was very sadly ironic, and goes to show how things can dramatically change overnight. I saw this quote recently and it really rang true: “A year ago, everything was different. And now that I look back, I realize that a year can do a lot to a person.”
It’s hard to believe a full year has already passed by, and yet, it was a lifetime ago.
