Still Sharing After All These Years

Meeting up with old friends warms my heart like few other things in this life.  It’s a shared embrace going back many years, a bond of common experience that runs deep.  We know each other’s stories well because we’ve been through so much together.

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

Those of you who know me also know that I worked for the same physician for 32 years.  During that time I grew to love many of the people who shared our medical practice and office building.  When you see the same people every day, sharing your “Good Morning’s” and “See ya tomorrow’s,” week after week, year after year, those same people become not only part of your daily routine but part of your life story as well.

In the span of those years, I witnessed all of the important markers in these people’s lives and those of their families – the marriages, births, graduations, weddings, illness, and loss.  I went through many life changes myself, all of them shared within this group and all made easier by their constancy and support.

THE SAFE HARBOR

There is something that friends and co-workers provide that family doesn’t.  While we rely on family members to comfort us in hard times, they are also overwhelmed by our shared pain.  Within the workplace, people empathize with your pain but aren’t part of it themselves.  They provide that all-important pat on the back that keeps us going; they provide that safe harbor.  Being part of a long-term workplace group where the surroundings and people are familiar and constant creates a sense of security which buoys our ability to cope.  We still suffer through the changes alone but feel comforted and protected by the group at the same time.  The busyness of the office space and the need to keep working in spite of our problems provides a cushion of sorts against our personal pain and helps us get through whatever it is without being weighed down by it.

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

When I first began working, the office world was a very different place.  Our phones were rotary dial and the typewriters were electric clunkers.  There was no state of the art Keurig machine, only slow-brew Mr. Coffee.   Medical claims forms, now spewed out electronically at lightning speed, were typed individually and then mailed.  Even more amazing, there were no computers and no Google, but somehow we managed to figure things out and run an efficient and thriving medical practice.  We adopted the new technologies only when forced to because we didn’t see any reason to change what already worked so well.

STILL CARING AND SHARING

It’s been almost a year now since we closed our medical office.  Although we no longer work together – some of us have retired, others have gone on to other jobs – we manage to stay in touch and get together for a group lunch occasionally.  We often laugh about the old days when we were surrounded by antique office equipment and the irony that now WE are the antiques!  It’s all good, though, because we still have that precious bond of working, crying and laughing together for so many years.  Thanks for the memories, old friends.  It’s been an honor to have you all in my life!

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