Member-only story
Blooming Where You’re Planted
Or, Pull the Weeds and Put Roots Somewhere Else
The prompt card asked, “What relationships are draining you?”
I thought I had found my space when I moved to Baltimore. I still recall the sensation of driving across the bridge that runs beside the M&T Bank stadium, where the Ravens play, and thinking, “this is my new city. It’s mine, finally something just for me,” even though of course I share it with tens of thousands of other people. Pittsburgh is this city with an “entrance,” a visual experience you get when you emerge from the Fort Pitt tunnels and downtown hits you with all its glory. Baltimore isn’t like that, but still, I was forging a new union, and it was special.
My new company had courted me. They had accommodated me. They valued my skills, presented me with a whole array — a title, an office, an apartment, a much larger salary — all to lure me here. I felt special with them.
Seven months later, with a pandemic looming on the horizon, I sat alongside ten other similarly talented executives in a glass-walled conference room as they told us we were having our last day. We were escorted to our desks, turning in our badges and parking passes, and this special relationship I’d had was over. Just…over. I had been dumped.
