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As of today, I've returned to my old job. Sorta like Fred Flintstone going back to work at the quarry. I was there from April of 1991 to November of 2007, then got moved(a part of my job there and me with it)to another work location, and in April of this year--just last month--opted to go back.

It's a place that deals with the public, so it's often full of folks. Not always noisy, but does reach a certain decibel level when the place is packed. You can take that as cacophony or a certain lively vitality, depending on your mood and saturation level.

The place I've been for two and a half years is just the opposite. There is no contact with the general public except by phone(when they can't get through to the 'noisy' offices)so the atmosphere is much quieter. After 16 years in a noisy office, this was pure Heaven at first. I reveled in the stillness, the lack of hubbub. Very refreshing.

In life I think you only know things by their opposites. You have happiness when you have sadness and have it taken away. Conversely you know sadness when you have happiness and have it taken away. Life is.

The quietude which was so nice at first had been getting to me. It was becoming a stark silence, which was at times deafening. What was a liberating lack of noise was turning into a straitjacket. This I interpreted as a sign that maybe it was time to move back to the noise- which now feels "refreshing".

Many of the folks I'd worked with during my 16 years there have moved on to other jobs(and yes, usually in quieter offices), but there are still a few stragglers. With them I still have the camaraderie that a decade and a half brings. One of them even toilet-papered my work area before I arrived.

Lots of new folks hired in during my two and a half year hiatus. I figure I'll get to know them a little at a time, just like the ones who are still there from before. And by the time I retire in roughly four years, I'll have a good camaraderie with at least a few of them.

The "good old days" I remember were actually times just like the present. Full of changes, and the various life challenges from that particular period. Your mind recalls these things in more of a comprehensive way, as a total mood or feeling that may have characterized part of what was going on. Somehow the crap that was actually going on in there gets wiped away. Four years from now, I'll probably remember 2010 in much the same way.

Welcome home.