This was it.  His last day on the job.  He’d waited, mostly patiently, for years to be able to quit as he pleased, and now he’d done it twice in one year.  How does it feel?  Remember Owen Wilson’s description of the ratio between excitement and scared in Armageddon?  Nothing like that.

His life had been so planned up until this year that he still couldn’t believe how relieved this all felt.  He just wanted to drink it up.

The great joy of the journey.  What was going to happen next?  He had some inklings, but no real vision.  Honestly, while he had narrowed down his professional joys, he knew just one thing above all.  He knew he was tired of trying to convince people of his value with his voice.   Experience as his mentor, he was learning that the great thing about self-respect and dignity is that they are heavy enough to squash self-doubt.

How would it all turn out?  That is what he longed to know.  Emerson wrote about what it must have been like three days before Columbus and his crew discovered America.  That day embodied the peak of excitement.  That day exemplified the joy of living.  Intuition caused him to identify with the sentiment as he read those words years ago.  Now, experience was teaching him the full truth of it.