newbuzz...My former work group is meeting tonight to celebrate and commiserate the changes we have come through since our jobs were moved out of state a year ago. Two have sold their homes and bought new ones. Several have new jobs. Two are on unemployment. New babies and grand babies have been born. Life goes on and so does our friendship. We made the mistake of comparing our work lives to our family lives. Though we spent forty hours a week with our co-workers, they were not our families. We were there to do a job and when the job was over, we could not stay. This is the nature of earning a living in modern society. We were there for a paycheck to support our real families. But this does not diminish the value and the richness of the relationships that were made while we were "on the clock". We remain connected by common experience and our community is intact in our hearts and minds. Though we all miss the old days when we were together, it is the knowledge of what we had and the support of our own families that will propel each of us forward to form new work groups to walk us through the next phase in our lives.