I’ve emailed them giving notice and hopefully that’ll all go smoothly. I’m sorry for not checking in with you guys first…I just had to get out of there, and everything you could have told me to make me stay I pretty much know already, so— Hey, let my mom down easy, okay? Tell her I suck at doing right by me, so she shouldn’t feel bad if I suck at doing right by her too. She’s definitely going to be hurt… having this whole route all mapped out for her son, “middle management, here we come”, and instead it’s like, no, hit the brakes, put the car back in the garage! Well—have fun thinking about all this and figuring out all the ways I could/should have stayed; the point is, I’m leaving, and just so you know where I’m headed, there’s a high-powered consultant here, ____, who’s always really liked talking with me; he asked me as soon as he heard what was happening to please crash at his place and take it easy through the spring. They’ll give me all the space I need, he promises, and he and I are on the exact same wavelength, so I’m just going to go for it and stay with him.

Hey. Thanks for both of your letters. I didn’t write back because I was sitting on this draft until I’d officially left the company; I was scared my mom would write to Jim and make everything harder. But it’s over now, I’m out. They were so sad to see me go—the head of HR even wrote me th… hm, I feel like I shouldn’t be telling you this, I’m sure this is hard enough on you guys already. The CFO managed to slip me a $5,000 severance cheque along with a note that moved me to tears, so you can tell my mom I don’t need that money I texted you about after all.