yeah, absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

Back from oblivion once again...  Haha! 

I am in a contemplative mood lately...  I have once again survived a decent sized layoff at the company I work at, as did Adolfo.  But I know people who lost their jobs...  It feels like we are all living in a cut-throat kind of environment around here where people hoard their work to seem indispensably busy, knowingly sacrificing the guy in the next row who has no work to do, and is next in line for the chopping block because he is charging company overhead.  I am very busy, and maybe I am guilty of a similar transgression, but I have actively been trying to find other people to do what I do because I am tired of being the only person who can do many of the things I do.  That's not what concerns me though...  I am worried that this environment has been hanging over our heads so long that many of us, myself included, have become somewhat apathetic. 

I miss the days when new people were starting every other month, bringing new ideas and new ways of looking at problems with them.  I miss meeting new people, and it tears my heart out to see all of my friends going anywhere they can, just to get out of here.  And I know I have it easier than many people, because I have my own roots here, separate from my job.  There are many people whose only family around here is the group of friends they built when they arrived.  The holes that they leave in our lives when they leave here are greater than any of us could have imagined, but at the same time, we are all aware that the best destiny is to get out as soon as a job offer comes through.  No one new comes to even patch the holes, and it feels like the world we build for ourselves is falling down around us. 

When can we hope to see this end?  I just keep trying to remind myself that if other sectors are recovering, its only a matter of time before ours does...  And in the worst case, we can leave too, when Adolfo has finished his Master's.  Maybe this is all just the way for me to see that it is time for me to close the book on this chapter of my life.