Change, that notion of undeniable duty, and that feeling of another compromise

I started a new job this week. Like all things new, it is demanding, and its painful, with very little apparent joy to begin with. There are days and events and upsetting interactions where you feel like you've just been dropped off to school on your first day with not a known soul in sight. Its not necessarily a bad feeling, just a strange, lonely one that you thought you'd forgotten.

Job changes used to be fun, when you almost always moved to a new job or role with more energy and almost always with company, from either your B School or Engg college. You never really worried about how you'd do, and you almost never wondered, if you'd like it. You just though you would.

Now, of course things have changed. You move alone, are reasonable sure of what you'd expect, and you know damn well why you are here. You are a lot more serious about your job 'cos you don't want to look like an idiot and you want to get stuff done at a reasonable speed. Deep in the visceral reality of your deliberate movements, your gait, your poise and your coping, you can't ignore the uncertainty that every cell in your body is feeling, as it taken in the new place, the new sights and the host of energies that float around trying all the time to learn how it can protect you, keeping you safe. The euphoria of pursuing something you crave is missing, as is the protective ignorance that you felt in your first job. Now, you know what to expect at some level and you know you could deal with the compromises you've made. But with all that cleared up, you still feel that pang of uncertainty, and a feeling of bereavement .... a bereavement of security that came with your position of hope that you held onto before you finally walked into a new situation. I guess what's worse is the bereavement of those opportunities, conspicuous by their absence, of paths that never opened when it should have, leaving you taking the path you knew you could, but didn't prefer to tread.