I was supposed to be happy.

I had gotten a job in my chosen Plan B career. All those years of working hard to upgrade my skills have finally paid off.

Yet, on my last day, as I placed goodbye cards on my colleagues’ desks before they came in, tears welled up.

I was saying goodbye, not just to my wonderful colleagues at the newspaper who have become like family to me, but also to to my long journalism career.

I had all kinds of emotions roiling within me. Happiness, excitement … grief.

Genesis

I’ve been a journalist since I was 18. I started out as a stringer, went on to get a J-degree, then returned full-time to the same newspaper to experience print media’s golden age in Malaysia. All in all, I clocked over 15 years in journalism (probably more), and with the same company.

In today’s parlance, I’m a rare art piece, a museum artefact – someone who has worked for a company for over a decade.

Journalism was a big, big, big part of my life. I cannot claim that I’ve always wanted to be a journalist. Like any kid I had a wild variety of career ideas: my first love was astronomy, then medicine, then writing. I didn’t care if I was a journalist, novelist etc. I just wanted to write for a living.

After university, with a mass communications degree in hand (marketing, advertising, journalism knowledge all rolling around in my bright, idealistic head) I was at a crossroads. Should I venture down the profitable and glitzy world of advertising & marketing, or should I make my way down the uncertain but exciting low-paying world of journalism?

In the end, I chose journalism – because as an ENFP, the possibility of adventures enticed me. And I was right, I had great adventures as a journalist.

Dining at the Forbidden City with Donatella Versace and Jet Li at the next table.

Walking down the red carpet, bleary eyed, behind the cast of a James Bond movie at the Royal Albert Hall. And then fighting jet lag as I watched the movie with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles sitting behind me.

Talking to a disabled activist who trained guide docs for a living.

Meeting a transvestite who made the bold move to talk about her transition.

I couldn’t wish for a better career.

In fact, I often wondered how in the world I ended up being so darn blessed to be in a job that was a dream fit for me.

Though I confess there were moments I wished I had given myself more options besides a Journalism major (a degree in nursing would have been mighty useful).

But then the digital age happened, and journalism was disrupted in a massive way.

I will spare you the gruesome details, but by 2010, I decided it was time to add more skills under my belt, and began aggressively pursuing that mission.

Grief

So, I was really surprised by the grief.

After all, it was my decision to move on.

I embarrassingly found myself talking as if I still worked at the old place. And I talk a lot about my ex-journo life to my new colleagues too.

I find myself longing to be in the busy newsroom again, being grumpy at last minute changes and celebrating when the paper was finally sent to the printers. I messaged my journo friends often, asking them how things were and reminiscing about the good old times. I met other ex-journalists who are now in shiny new careers. It was some relief to discover that, like me, they struggle with the desire to return to journalism every. single. f***ing day.

Some days I’m even angry.

I’m angry at the digital disruption that has blighted my beloved industry so much. (Which is ironic since I am now working with tech that’s causing said disruption.)

I’m angry that I had to leave it.

I’m angry at myself for choosing a journalism career.

I’m angry for leaving it.

Yet I’m also angry that I want to return to journalism.

And I feel guilty for leaving for “the other side”.

Shouldn’t I be grateful?

Shouldn’t I be glad?

And on and on goes the self-flagellation.

I didn’t realise then that what I was going through was grief. I was processing a major loss of my identity. I was mourning for the loss of a work culture. I was missing my creative, vivacious media friends. I was grappling with the loss of a way of life – how time is fluid in the media (clocking in and out? puh-lease), how passionate expressions of emotions are a norm at the office.

I was grieving over the disintegration of my dream career.

In the New York Times article, Why you should take time to mourn during career transitions, the writer said that grief might come rather unexpectedly and that it’s normal to mourn even after you’ve started the new job.

….it’s important to take time, both before you leave a job and after you’ve started a new one, to process these transitions. Dealing with bouts of grief instead of ignoring them can help you better navigate the complex emotions of leaving a job you love and starting fresh somewhere new.

As a person who craved variety, I used to think that it was easy to walk away from a job, to move on to newer things. But losing your work identity can be hard, especially if you’ve spent many years in the old career and when the transition doesn’t work out as planned .

And especially if it was your dream career. Some of the steps I’ve taken to mourn the end of my journalism career included:

• Staying in contact and meeting up with my journo friends to talk shop
• Talking about the good times – but with the right people!
• Allowing myself a cry or two or three
• Keeping in touch with journalism trends

It’s getting better. Some days I’m more wistful than angry/sad.

I used to beat myself up for compulsively talking about my ex-journo career with people. I feel like that auntie who can’t stop showing the 1001 pictures she took of her Macau trip. But I realise now that as a person who process things by talking it out, it’s a natural thing to do. Now I just need to exercise wisdom in choosing who I unload on.

I realise that these emotions doesn’t mean that I’m being ungrateful for my career change, or that I am being disloyal to my new company.

I realise now that all this is just a normal part of career transition.

And I hope, if you’re going through the same grief, that you know that too.