This paper hanging around my neck:
It's not so much that I mind revising it (though I do), or that I don't care (though I don't). It's not even really the principle of the thing, though if you'd quit working for a company 11 months ago, would you still be working for them? (No. No, you would not.)
It's what it makes me remember.
It takes me right back to 6.5 very difficult years. Being told in public that I was incompetent. Knowing that, if ever I let my guard down, my colleagues and co-workers would jump on me like jackals. Sitting alone in lab, late at night, crying over an impossible experiment that I had to do to graduate. Knowing that whatever I did, my advisor's response would be, 'You need to work harder.'
Standing in a parking lot at 1 AM waiting for a bus that never came.
Walking home at night, alone, terrified that I would be set on by people with guns.
Laying in bed on a cold winter morning, too sick and too depressed to even get up.
Coming home every day for three years, and sitting on the couch and crying, unsure if I could do it for one more day.
Being done doesn't erase the memories. And so I want to never think of it again. That's what I mind.
