So Long, Farewell...

This weekend marks the end of Kathleen’s run on my shift, as come Monday she will be off to start a new job with the company.
I have to admit, however reluctantly, that I will miss her. In the time we’ve been on the shift I’ve actually enjoyed arguing with her, and the way we were able to play off of each other’s sense of humor.
It was always nice to know that if I wasn’t prepared to cross the line into total impropriety and inappropriateness Kathleen was there to make the leap over that line, often gleefully.
And I will miss having someone to tell me to shut up, to whom I could respond, “You shut up.”
Ah well, to everything there is a season and various other platitudes about change…
I’ve actually seen a lot changes in my roughly two and a half years on this shift. After all, in the company I work for two and a half years is practically an eternity. I’m always amazed by the fact that, when I go to trainings at HQ, my three years or so with the company marks me as an old-timer compared to the vast majority of people who have been with the company for six months or even less.
So Kathleen will hardly be the first person I’ve seen come and go from this shift, and I doubt she will be the last.
Meanwhile I’m not going anywhere.
Is it because I’ve become complacent? Stagnant? Stuck in a rut?
Yes, yes, and yes.
However, it’s also because I get four days off every week.
Sure, my job isn’t as challenging or rewarding as I might like, and it can get boring, and while it does pay well, in an area where no piece of property is available for less than $200, 000 (and very few for less than $300,000), it doesn’t pay quite well enough for me to easily build the kind of future I might like to have, but on the other hand I only have to work three days a week.
Only three days, unlike certain other losers who are leaving to go to a FIVE DAY A WEEK shift, and who will have to deal with the kind of morning and evening traffic that those of us who work on weekends are able to avoid…
I imagine it will be very difficult for Brian to adapt to Kathleen’s absence. After all, now that they’ll have opposing days off they’ll hardly get to see each other.
Still, that’s got to be healthier than the way things are now. I mean, my god, I can’t imagine being married to someone and actually working with her, too. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone enough to want to spend that much time together. Sometimes I’m amazed that they haven’t killed each other.
Of course, my perspective on that sort of thing is probably skewed by the fact that for most of the last ten years I’ve lived in near-total isolation.
That’s why I often wonder how I would go about actually integrating a woman into my life if I were to somehow magically meet a woman who was willing to date me more than twice.
Having become so isolated and weird (and weirder all the time), I just don’t see how I could do it.
Apart from personality issues, though, there’s also the schedule problem that Brian and Kathleen will now have, as most people (like Kathleen) don’t have four days off during the week. So I would have to meet a woman who could successfully navigate her way through a sea of ten years’ worth of accumulated idiosyncrasies brought on by isolation and who would be willing, or able, to accommodate my unconventional schedule.
And if this increasingly hypothetical woman and I were to become serious...at this point I just can’t imagine myself actually living with someone else.
As empty (yet comfortable, thanks to those pricey sheets) as my bed feels, it would be strange to actually share it with someone.
Still, I suppose I would adapt (much like Kathleen will have to adapt to her new FIVE DAY A WEEK schedule.), though fortunately the odds don’t really favor me having to find out whether or not I can or would adapt…
In any case, that’s going to do it for this week. I hope all of my faithful Threshold readers will join me in wishing Kathleen the best of luck in her new, FIVE DAY A WEEK position, and that you all have a good weekend.