How It Ended

What I remember of the beginning is minimal.  There was anger in the voice that approached me, and I did the best I could to respond to something I had been avoiding specifically because I didn't know how to do so kindly.  The tension built steadily as the conversation continued and almost doubly so in the moments when my response was pure silence.  This most ridiculous altercation I'd ever had with a coworker lasted well over an hour, took place in two offices, and echoed in angry footsteps through the hallways between the them.

Somewhere near the height of the conflict two very distinct neurons fired simultaneously in my brain.  The first was a memory of him telling me he was going to pull the plug.  The second was a conclusion that in the morning I would request that very thing.

What I remember of how the plot twisted is non-existent.  One minute we're bitter combatants, the next she's apologizing that she has to leave and assuring me we're going to get it all fixed up just the two of us.  But I didn't walk away on a hopeful note.  I walked away feeling beaten down and flattened.  Even worse, she had become among the smaller of my problems.  I now had evidence that my entire world was a lie.  I had taken every step somebody could expect of me to help ensure I got things right and it didn't matter. Those I should have been able to rely on had failed me and the blame was being forced squarely on my shoulders.  I saw I was trapped in a situation I wasn't sure anybody could function successfully in.  

I could have been angry, but I wasn't.  I just felt worn out and lost.

The text message fired off to the only life line I could think of.  "I know you have a game tonight, but if you have a few minutes and you're willing, please call me".  Whether I muddled through the immediate aftermath alone was now out of my hands.  And it kind of scared me.

Almost immediately the ringing tone exploded through the car speakers.  I didn't know jumping that high while wearing a seat belt was even possible.  We talked for my entire drive home and then some.  I told what pieces of the story I could remember and everything I was thinking and feeling and how I didn't know what to make of what had just happened or what to do.  He listened, he apologized, he thanked me, and he asked that I give him some time to think about it because he really didn't know what to do either.

The next morning he rode with me to pick up our visitor.  From the way he asked how I was doing I suspected he knew both the answer and that he could do nothing about it.  He got an earful all the way to badging and all the way back.  I went through the motions with our guest much quieter than usual, certain everyone could see through me enough to know something was wrong even if they didn't know what.  When it was all over we sat down in his office once again trying to make sense of it all.

"I just need to get out of here," I said with a resigned tone.
"How far do you want to go?"
"Australia."
"If you went to Australia, would you come back?"
"At this point, no," I answered bluntly.  "I'm at a point where I don't want to come back here or be anywhere near these people or do anything even remotely related to what I've been doing ever ever again."

It was a rather tragic place to be.  All of my excitement, all of my passion for the greater mission was gone.  I had been thoroughly abused almost nonstop for the past year while continuing to strain with everything I had to keep moving and keep fighting for what I thought was right.  And the conclusion I had reached was that nothing was worth what I'd been through.  Nothing was worth what my team had been through.

And so he told me he was going to shut it down.  He was angry, he was disappointed, and he saw that I didn't need or deserve what I was suffering with.  I could work a few real 40 hour weeks for a change, focus on my class work and my developmental program, and maybe help him with the work for his half-dozen teams to save KSC.  Yes, in the morning, that's what he would do.

As we walked out to our cars that night I challenged the plan.  "If you kill it, you don't give her the opportunity to show she can do any better, and you don't give me the opportunity to show her I can do any better," I observed.  "And if I stood there last night saying we could figure out a way to work on things and move forward and suddenly the project is gone, I look like a liar."  The problem was, the last time I had given somebody a chance to work things out it blew up in my face and only did more damage.  Perhaps my hope and naivety and desire to trust were just working against me again.

I left that night with a heavy decision.  Did I believe we could work things out or was it time to end the project?  In a little over 12 hours I'd have to know for sure.  My position was unenviable; even some the girls in my home group admitted they had no idea how to decide such a thing.

Back at home I replayed every major issue we'd had and every major criticism I'd consistently received.  I went back through email and took notes on what I found there.  I reflected on some of the key things I'd been told along the way.  As I did this digging I came to two major conclusions. The first was that my team's management had failed them and had failed me.  The second was that the only motivation I had to keep fighting was that I didn't want the project to have fallen apart on my watch.  Fortunately I was wise enough to recognize that personal pride was a poor reason to keep putting everybody through hell we were apparently enduring.

I went into his office first thing in the morning as usual, this time closing the door behind me.  "So what do you think?"  It was a relief to discover we'd reached the same conclusion and had done so for very similar reasons.

We spent the morning looking at the impacts and figuring out the close-out plan.  We placed phone calls to the off-center management associated with the work, the group that would have to pick up the slack, and the president of the company whose new development contract would no longer be coming.  The talks with the local management came in the afternoon.  When they disappeared in the office with the project manager I booked it around the corner to find the two people on the team I had always felt the most responsible for.  I knew it was likely to get me in trouble, but I wanted them to hear it from me first.  I wanted them to know it was in no way their fault.

I acknowledge that I didn't always do things right, but I also know without a doubt that I always tried to do the right things.  There's a big and very important difference between the two.  I understand that sometimes the greatest show of wisdom is recognizing the battle is lost within enough time that there might still be something left to save.  There's reason to find peace and comfort in both of those things, but it is slow in coming.

At the end of the day he reassured me we made the right decision.  It didn't make the pain go away.  It didn't ease the tears continuing to build behind my eyes and waiting to leak down my cheeks again.  It didn't touch the larger issues I still had to struggle through or address all of the things I felt like I still had to say.  It gave me no answers, no direction, no suggestion at how to cope with the unwavering feeling that the last five years of my life had now proven to have been completely wasted.  I got in my car numb and with no sense of the relief one might have expected. All I had was the disappointing truth. 

DON was dead.