last

last swim in the sea for me this year. from now on, it's feet only, and before you can say umph, i'll have my boots on again too. summer is gone.

this week i handed in my letter of resignation. as of the 1st of january, i will be unemployed. this marks the end of a long struggle, as well as the end of an era.

i arrived at the little brown building on the canal in the fall of 1994, a 20-year old, joyfully diving into an english language and literature degree after a failed attempt at mathematics. then came linguistics. a phd. a little teaching job here, and a little teaching job there, a bigger editing job, translating, teaching again, other stuff this time. the years went by. i slipped unnoticed from student to lecturer to coach. and for 15 years, every single morning that i had to get up to be somewhere, that somewhere was the same little brown building on the canal.

Sammy once said: "for someone who makes such radical choices in life with such seeming ease, you have been remarkably conservative in your career choices", which i took to be code for "what the flip are you still doing there?".

two children, one burn-out and two years of unschooling later, it has finally come to this. saying good-bye to the little brown building. and all that it has meant to me. the amazing people i met, the things i learnt. which also means saying good-bye to the fantasy of a profesional academic life. as far back as i can remember, i thought i would be an academic. instead, i turned out a thinker. and found out that the two are not really the same...

and now, having taken the time that was needed to work through all that had to be worked through, i am left with a feeling of deep gratitude for 15 years well-spent, and a tremulous yearning for whatever is to come...