All night long last night and through the morning today, the entire New York City area experienced torrential downpour. I woke up in the middle of the night to the rain loudly tapping my windows, and I knew this was going to be really bad. Some subway stations  got flooded in uptown Manhattan. I even got a flight alert notification saying that my early morning flight today might get delayed due to heavy winds. I had a two-hour buffer between the time that my plane was scheduled to land and the time of my business review meeting. I needed to make this meeting.

So, the flight took off a bit delayed. But as we were ascending, the worst turbulence that I can ever remember began. The plane didn’t even feel like it was going straight. It felt like it was going sideways to the left for a few minutes, then sideways to the right, then as though it were tumbling down but trying to lift itself up all at the same time. None of the feelings made sense. I was sitting at the front of the plane and looked back to see people’s facial expressions. For the most part in First Class, people were fairly nonchalant or passed out. But the people in the front of Coach looked disturbed. A colleague who sat back there told me that at least 2-3 people were yelling at the back of the plane, and several others had their eyes closed and their hands together as though in prayer. Let’s all just brace ourselves.

It lasted for over 15 minutes. Even the flight attendants were not allowed to get out of their seats. At least we finally got to a clear, smooth path. We didn’t die. It’s all good news.

I had brunch with a friend today who was visiting from Seattle. She and her now husband have been living in Seattle for almost six years now, and although it was originally intended to be a temporary stint since they both were born and raised in New Jersey, she’s grown to love the city a lot, as well as the friends she’s made there. The two of them have enjoyed the careers they’ve been growing in, and they love the west coast way of life.

She told me that although her husband ideally says he wants to move back to New York/New Jersey to be closer to their childhood friends, she doesn’t see that being a huge plus in their life, as so many of their friends’ lives have gone in directions where she can no longer relate to them, and she’s changed herself, too. She’s lived in other places and has other ways of thinking. She’s outgrown them, and they’ve probably outgrown her in their own ways. It’s a hard thing to confront. She even had the “tough talk” with one of her friends who asked why she hadn’t come to visit her when she’s in town. I don’t even think I’ve had a conversation that confrontational with anyone.

All of our lives are changing. It’s hard to relate to people who stay in one place their whole life when you’ve moved around, experienced other things and other places and other people. We can’t always grow in the same direction, but dealing with it continuing to move forward is the only way to go. There’s nothing wrong with growing up and moving on. It doesn’t make us bad people. We’re just adults making adult decisions now.

The office has been pretty quiet this week due to a lot of work travel for many people across teams. I’ll be away from the office Wednesday through Friday of this week for customer visits in Boston, and other colleagues are in San Francisco for everything from a major conference for a platform we use, to internal product training for the sales team.

One of the colleagues in my office who is on my team and I were talking about our colleagues in general and our general work environment, and we both agreed that for the first time in both of our careers, we actually liked the people in our office and would not mind and would even welcome spending time outside of work with almost everyone. It’s a rare instance to have that be the case, where you aren’t sick of work people where you’d like to see them in a more social, less professional environment. Sometimes, I even find myself missing some of my colleagues when I am away or they are away from the office. That is a very strange feeling for me because I’ve never quite had that before. Things certainly are not perfect here. But it helps when the colleagues you see regularly are supportive and multi-dimensional, and have lives outside of work that we can talk about and enjoy discussing.

It was almost like reverse empty-nest today: Chris’s parents left to continue onto the next segment of their trip. And our house was empty again. We did the laundry, ran the dishwasher, and tidied up the bedroom. It was quiet. And we caught up on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and Chris did his finances while I caught up on my book that I’ve been neglecting on my Kindle. And when we talked to each other, it’s almost like I could hear a slight echo of my voice in the living room. It seemed so strange.

I wonder if that is part of the feeling that “empty-nesters” get once their kids leave the house. There’s no noise. There’s no towels or clothes everywhere. There’s less to fuss over.