Originally published at blogger, here was my moment of moving on:

Eleven months ago when I was packing up my office after being laid off, I threw my box of business cards into stuff I was taking home with me. I sat the rolling case full of the detritus of my career in a corner of my home office and ignored it for close to a year. A good friend, former supervisor and mentor asked me for some material from a presentation I delivered at a conference a couple of years ago, so I went digging through it, finally. Found those business cards, stared at them for awhile, wondering for what purpose I had kept them, decided I kept them because, at that time, I had not yet let go, not processed that particular loss fully. I then surprised myself by realizing that it doesn’t hurt anymore to think about it. Threw them in the trash, it felt good, cathartic. It was at that very moment that I truly let the last of it go, the vestiges of outrage, pain and loss garnered from not just the loss of a job or even a career trajectory, but my sense of purpose in my work life and all the people who truly made up a second family to me, the coworkers, clients, community and contacts, the relationships forged in that time. It was a relief to feel the weight lift completely and realize that it had been getting lighter and lighter all along. Now I finally feel fully invested in my new job, no longer holding a piece of myself back from it for some vague reasons I couldn’t even articulate. At the same time I was not fully invested in the new job, I also did not let myself look for or think about other options, like graduate school or another job entirely. Probably for those same vague reasons. Now I feel like I can truly move forward again, after a year of feeling like I slid backwards then got stuck. It feels good to be unstuck!