New Office, New Month

Beginning tomorrow, May 2, I will be in a new office space. I'm still in Reston, still actually at the same address, but on the other side of the building. This move was by no means sudden, we have been hearing about it for six months or so. And I still have the same cubicle up in Linthicum, that I occupy a couple times a month. And two of my colleagues from the old office will be in the next two cubes over, with a few other colleagues scattered about. So it won't be radically different.

But it will be somewhat different. The end of March, my colleagues were laid off of their contract, and one week later the one colleague who was on my contract moved out of the area. So suffice it to say that a room filled with 20 cubibles dwindled from being almost completely full in October 2009 down to seven people by the end of this April. That room started to feel like a big cavern. Deadly quiet most of the time. In the new space I and my two colleagues will be surrounded by other workers, constantly on the phone. Did I mention there's a window and natural light? In the old place it was windowless.

Usually I don't like moving, particularly when I don't choose to move. But this time is different. I am looking forward to settleing into my new digs. The old office just wasn't the same when my colleagues, who had become friends, were no longer there. Every time I walked in and sat down at my desk I would miss not having Carolyn and Tanya right in back of me. The thing that made the old office so special was the relationships. But now it is time for a new physical environment and new relationships.

The new month, the month of May, is much like my office move, the physical environment is different, but the season is much the same, with plants growing and blooming beautifully. New environment, new relationships, but with important anchors in the past. Maybe it is no coincedence that we celebrate Easter and the resurrection every year sometime between the end of March and the end of April. By the time May rolls around we are ready to move on. So for me this year it is a new office and along with it a new month, a new playing out of the aftermath of the recurrection.