So here I sit in a Kamloops hotel room, wondering if I have lost my mind completely. I am two days into a job that will be my life for the next two years; 48 hours and I have already lost my taste for restaurant food. This is certainly going to be an adventure.
It certainly came with all the trappings. Company cellphone, company laptop, company credit card, expense account….the works. A golden extravaganza of potential involving travel to such exotic places as Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and Cranbrook, BC. A daunting cycle of weeks spent in rail yards capturing variances to operating plans and managing the pent-up angst of employees with 30+ years of service who are trying to do the right thing but simply can’t or won’t understand the direction the company has chosen to follow. A challenge, for sure; but one that will certainly bring with it a wealth of experience and a lot of war stories.
It was strange leaving the NMC for the last time on Friday morning. Walking away from the desk knowing that I wouldn’t be back was sobering; almost saddening. I will definitely miss the guys I worked with, as well as the job itself. It was hell on many an occasion, but it was never boring. I suppose this won’t be either. All in the name of progress.
I am not really sure what the coming months will bring. I can already see how the travel will be draining, and I am beginning to understand exactly how little time I will have with my family and I’m not sure I like what I see. I guess I knew coming in that there would be drawbacks, and that now I will have to buckle down and bear with it for the next few years so my family and I will be able to realize the benefits of doing this.
I have never really enjoyed change, which is strange for a man who requires variety in his work or he gets so bored that he loses interest and ultimately stops caring. I suppose it is rooted in me; a deep-seated desire to stay close to what I know. Funny then, that I search for the things that will destabilize what I am familiar with. Perhaps I feel a need to expand my horizons, push the envelope a little, and stand on the precipitous edge of my comfort zone. Maybe it really was just born out of a desire to do what was best for my family. Maybe I’ll never know.
What I do know is this. At 6 am on Friday mornig, as I walked out of the NMC and back to my car after finishing my last night shift, the air smelled like spring. It was the middle of February, but there was the unmistakable scent of fresh growth and life beginning anew. For a moment I almost expected to drive down the ramp into a brilliant June sunrise, bathing verdant treetops with the pale golden light of a new dawn. It was only when I closed the car door and settled back into the musty grit of a long Alberta winter that I realized that the sensory deception was just that. Still, it sparked in me the realization that it doesn’t really matter where you’re at with your life; things can and will always change, and they will do it with or without you. What happens next is all a result of how you choose to deal with the differences and what you make of the situation.
Here’s to change.
