Yesterday marked the climax of an incredibly difficult two weeks: I quit my job. My last day will be on June 6th.

The decision to leave was a very long time in the making, because I truly loved my job. Unfortunately, a series of Unfortunate Circumstances made it impossible for me to keep calm-ish and carry on, as I’d been doing with marginal success since last July .. so I had to make the call. And it sucks.

For a very long time, I really loved my job. It was challenging and fun and I was learning more about mobile development than I ever thought possible. I found a talent for requirements that I didn’t know I had, and I was genuinely excited to ferret out all the tiny details that go into making something work. I loved my coworkers. I loved my projects. I didn’t love my desk, but even that source of daily annoyance was but a tiny fluffy cloud in the overall blue skies of my life.

After more than a year of giddiness about my job, things went south. I won’t go into detail here – you know where to find me if you want to hear the long, boring saga – but I kept thinking that maybe it would get better, and maybe things weren’t so bad, and maybe I really DID do terrible work and every other person I’ve worked with in my entire life was lying to me about my skills, and maybe no one else WOULD ever hire me, and maybe there ISN’T any value in my work, and maybe I was an awful person who deserved everything that happened, and blah blah blah Stockholm Syndrome.

Just when I learning to cope with the panic attacks, insomnia, and stress-related pointy zebra raves, the craziest thing happened: out of nowhere a massive straw fell from the sky and landed directly on a poor camel, snapping his spine into a zillion pieces! zomg!

The massive camel-seeking straw was the last of its kind, and on Friday I submitted my resignation.

I’m pretty torn up about it, because I still believe in the talents of my team and the work we were doing. I know they’ll soldier on just fine without me (hopefully not TOO fine), and my leaving isn’t that big a deal. Still, I felt so bad about abandoning them that I brought in Apology Cake as I broke the news .. I’m really going to miss them. I made a lot of friends at this job, some of whom are still there, and I’ll miss them terribly. For the longest time, I thought I could stick it out because I got to work with such awesome people, but in the end, it was a really big straw. And not a single person can blame me for doing what I have to do.

It’s not all bad, though: I start my new job on July 7th!

I have a crazy cool opportunity ahead of me, and I’m really excited about it. My confidence is a little shaky right now, but I know I can rock this shit like no other. Plus, I have three+ weeks in London between jobs which’ll go a long way in fixing my head space. Everything is coming up Milhouse – I’m looking forward to a new challenge (and also London because YAY LONDON!).

I’m sad right now, though. It’s hard not to remember how fucking amazing my job was, and think about all the cool people I’m leaving behind.

.. it was a really, really big straw.

delicious but sad