Loss

There is a strange feeling wanting to express real affection for younger people that you work with as a middle-aged man – concerns around getting it wrong constrain my ability to show some of the people who I work closely with how much I value them. I wrote this last year but never posted it – it felt too open, and I wasn’t sure how the people concerned would take it. I’m braver now:

I am in the throes of one of those periods of life where there are so many changes that sometimes a sense of loss is inevitable.

After the final adventures of the Puma Force over March and into April, May and June bring a change of pace and yet more of the same. I am returning from the leaving do of one of the most excellent of colleagues, and I feel sad. Sad that they are leaving, but also sad that I feel like we didn’t do them justice with this send-off.  They have been an absolute stalwart of the team for years, someone who has always brought strong challenge and deep compassion in equal measure. My sadness on their departure is for me, not them – they are moving to a brilliant new job, closer to home and closely aligned to their values.

But what about me?! As a part-timer in an organisation you rely more heavily on a few key people than you do when you work somewhere all day every day, and one of them is moving on. For years I have told myself and others that “I don’t need any more friends, I don’t have the time to see all those that I have already” – while this is true, it has led to me forming fewer, deeper relationships when I have moved and this means that each parting is harder and tinged with fear.

What if I don’t see them again? What if they don’t want to see me? Why didn’t I try harder when I had the chance?

When I compare my two working worlds the difference is stark – an equivalent departure in the RAF would have merited a similar turn-out, with faces both old and new. There would have been the same catching up, the same affection shown. But it would have gone on until the early hours, there would have been speeches and hangovers and excess and probably some tears – I don’t know why it bothers me that this didn’t go like that (it was never going to!) but bother me it does. After 20+ years I am obviously indoctrinated but beyond that I want to be sure that they know how much their presence, counsel and support meant to me. I struggle with the idea that they might not know how much I value them, and how much I want to stay in touch.

Maybe it’s a failing of emotional literacy that I couldn’t just say all of those things at the time, or more importantly before the time came for them to go. Who the fuck do I go to now for that wisdom, or for that perspective, or to be told to get a grip?! This all sounds very selfish, and I suppose it is – everything changes, it is the nature of things, but this is a lot at once. And yet if they had asked my advice I would have cheered them to the rafters, yelled to go for it, seize the opportunity, leap forward with bravery and joy and don’t look back. And turned my head so that they didn’t see my tears.

But why hide it? Beyond our British resolve and awkwardness with emotion there is a real gift in showing how much someone means to you – my world will be a bit smaller, a bit colder without them in it, and I would be sad if they didn’t know that.

I know all of this: it is a tribute to them and the light that they bring, but no consolation in the moment.

And again…

Another train home, another full yet heavy heart. In 3 weeks, I've "lost" 2 of 3 people who make up my personal centre of gravity in my scale-up world.

While obviously I call them quitters and other worse names (to their face), I would not be the person that I am now without them. I truly hope that we have made the step from colleagues to friends, but time will tell - for my part, I would be as glad to hear from them in 10 minutes or 10 years. The military world does not easily translate to the "real" world - our tight bonds and the ability to pick up where we left years later are, it turns out, not normal. We easily collect the strands of our disparate lives, re-knit them and carry on seamlessly in a way that is either a blessing or a curse (or most likely both). Who knew this wasn't how everyone behaved?!

You never truly appreciate what you have until you don’t have it any more – except when you are fortunate enough to have two parallel worlds. What I love about the relationships forged in the operational environment is the depth of connection with people who you have been through real hardship with – you can call it trauma bonding if you want, but intensity builds a stronger bond more quickly. The loss of this is a change that feels diminishing, and although it is the different context outside the military that makes this easier to see, the lesson is about me rather than the context. Apparently I am someone who, despite the resistance to forming new friendships still craves the strength of the camaraderie that exists in those intense, excellence-driven organisations – another contradiction, but one to sit with rather than move past.  

So this leaves me in uncertain waters – how to express this want in a real world where so many people just don’t build that depth of connection in work? How to fit what I need into the normal frame of working life? And with no clear answer, I guess I will do what some would say I have done for years and reject “normal” and instead embrace my own version of “better” – rather than hiding from that desire for connection and experience I will try instead to understand how to communicate it softly yet clearly in a world which is more challenging for me to navigate. Try to take the best from both parts of my experience and combine them into something that works for both me and the world around me. I’ve already got the best examples of the “real world” having been exposed to them for so long as a result of my departing friends.

Thank you to both of you, for everything that you have done for us and everything that you have taught me. 

Quitters.