A friend of mine, who employs BigOne for some help around the house decluttering, recently told me he reached his 15 year work anniversary at that aerospace company I used to work at. In fact, that is where I met this friend. I left right after my 10th anniversary there.
Coming up in just 8 days, I celebrate 5 years at my current job. (I don’t think I get a present at this organization like I did at the last one.) However, I do fully vest in retirement contributions from the organization. Over the last 5 years, I have quit, in my mind, around 500 times. I am generally always ready for a change and I generally always think that changes needs to happen outside of me. I mean, I’m perfect right?
I think the celebration of anniversaries is an interesting part of our culture. We like to count time more than just about anything else except money. We have work anniversaries, graduation anniversaries, marriage anniversaries, and of course we celebrate the anniversary of our own birth and the births of the people who matter to us. We count how long it has been since we left high school, graduated from college, or stuck to our diet[1].
We like to count time and we like to reward the passing of another year with a gift. Or a special meal. Or perhaps with a gathering. Because we are social people. This last year has cut down on the social side of things, so many people will celebrate the 21st of something instead of the 20th. This is ok. I am impressed how here where I live, people are embracing the act of celebrating and embracing each other as we get vaccinated.
At the same time we count up, we are counting down. We are counting to the place where something is going to end and the number will not go higher. Changing jobs, being let go or retiring are all ways your work anniversaries will end. Divorce stops the count up on how long you have been married. Death happens, and that stops all the counting for your milestones.
For more than 600,000 Americans, there will be no more counting up for a loved one[2] or colleague.
I have this habit, and it is probably not a good one, of focusing heavily on the anniversaries of things I am glad ended. A very bad day or a very bad experience… and each year it revisits me. October 3, 1986 was one of the worst days of my life, and for years I marked it with maybe an extra adult beverage and being very sad about how my life changed that day[3].
But then, 17 years later on October 3rd, I went into labor for the first time. 36 hours later, I delivered unto the world my first child who would grow up to become BigOne. And now they are 17[4] and facing their own life changing moments that will stick with them forever. They will mark and remember their own anniversaries positive and negative and see how they change their life and their outlook. Someday, they will get a job. Will they celebrate a work anniversary larger than 10 years? Maybe 20 years?
Work anniversaries are mild. They aren’t as emotional as birthdays or weddings or class reunions. There is a whole spectrum of ways an anniversary can affect you. Perhaps our culture puts too much emphasis on the counting of days and months and years, but it does help us mark the time. Those sign posts in our past, or in our future, give shape to the story of our lives. I think that is good. When we reflect on the choices we made to get where we are, when we look forward to achieving a long term commitment, we weave our story into other people’s stories. No one celebrates an event that doesn’t also have another person in the event[5].
Perhaps all these events are what help us create communities, and help us realize that we matter.
[1] Or you know, quitting smoking. But we won’t talk about that yet.
[2] Surely it is more than that as one person gone means more than one person is missing an anniversary they were looking forward to…
[3] It is a long story. We all have days like that in our past. No one died, but the events that started that day changed the direction of my life.
[4] I mean, I was 16 in 1986, but 16 in 1986 was a lot more independent than 17 in 2021.
[5] Considering this: While days on your diet probably don’t involve another person, changing our personal behavior is, I think, about meeting someone else’s expectations. But that is going to require more thought and be a different letter.