Moving On

What does moving on look like?

Last night, I dreamed of the funeral, which is tomorrow. I dreamed that I was organizing it, and I kept screwing everything up. And then finally, in my dream, I wept. Gut-wrenching, agonizing sobs, like I haven't allowed myself to have in real life. And then I woke up.

I'm glad that we wake up. The sobs catch us at weird moments, like in the car between appointments, but eventually we wake up. We find ourselves laughing at weird videos on Facebook, or getting excited about future moments, and then wonder, guiltily, if we are even allowed to do so.

I don't think anyone knows what moving on looks like. To me, it can't possibly mean continuing what once was. I must be changed somehow. And for the sake of the dead, I must be better, not worse.

In between visiting various of my staff today, I listed to a Harvard Business Review podcast about "Letting your employees be human." I spoke to a peer on the phone later, admitting that I hadn't had much appetite for work lately, and he confided that he felt the same. We hadn't admitted it to each other, continuing the facade to each other that we were achieving and overachieving, when really, the weight of our own pressure to perform was drowning us in the midst of our grief.

I wondered, if I had told him the truth in the beginning, and he had done the same, would we rather have helped each other through?

So how will I be different? I can't allow the sadness much longer, though the grief will be there still. I must move forward, but I will lean, rest, be vulnerable, hope, and be human.

And I think, work may just be better for it.