All That Matters

Jeannie sat down at her desk in the middle of the tiny nursery and began to write the letter.

The nursery was not fancy, but it held all the conveniences that a baby growing into a toddler would need. Jeannine's brother, Anthony, had painted a mural beside the crib–the moon and the stars in a night sky and when you turned the lights off, the glow in the dark paint cast the room in a celestial glow. The mobile, the stars and moon, hummed softly in the background and created a peace that rivalled the chaos that was constantly filling her mind.

Jeannie could no longer take the pressure, the expectations, the scrutiny—it was all so palpable. Every moment, of every day, her actions–or lack thereof, were constantly being compared to her colleagues.

Life had become unbearable. No one knew how unbearable, and yet the organization did not care. They only cared about one thing, and that was the bottom line. What was it her boss has said to her weeks before;

"Jeannie, you need to be here. I have the same health concerns, and I have never taken one day, let alone three days off, to recover. I suck it up, pop a few Tylenol and get my butt in here. It's what we do. It's what the organization expects; it's what I expect. If these repeated absences continue, I will have to place a formal reprimand on your file."

Jeannie was flabbergasted. She knew at that moment that she could not ask her boss for help. The organization liked to flaunt values of caring, compassion, understanding. Yet, at the end of the day, not one person in this organization lived them. They were nice words floated out of the mouths of senior executives ad flashed across the television screens in the lobby, but that's where the values stopped.

Every day, for the past ten years Jeannie, whenever Jeannie walked into the organization, she was forced to put up with the sexist comments, the subtle racist remarks disguised as 'jokes,' and in management meetings, her opinions were brushed aside. She was expected to care for all her employees, but who was there to care for her? Who was out there worrying that her marriage was breaking down? That the postpartum depression, even a year later, was taking its toll? How could she care for her employees when she barely held it together to care for herself, let alone her son.

Jeannie looked over at her son, Myles, sitting quietly in his crib. He was such a happy baby, despite the turmoil that fluctuated around him. There he sat, in the middle of the crib, playing with his feet. A tear rolled down Jeannie's cheek. She had failed him. Failed herself. She didn't care about the blow-up she had with her boss. She didn't care that a few hours ago, she became unravelled at work and called all of her employees incompetent and selfish; she just didn't care–anymore. They didn't care enough to ask what she was going through so...

Jeannie looked down at the tiny envelope and lined paper and was about to write the note that they would find tucked in her son's sleeper. Call it synchronicity, serendipity or just plain luck. At the exact moment that Jeannie lifted her pen to write, Myles let out a scream. Jeannine had heard all of Myles' sounds over the past year; she knew when he was hungry, when he was upset, even when he was happy, but this scream was different. This sound he never made.

Jeannie stood up and walked over to his crib. Myles stood up and looked into her face with his big brown eyes. He batted his long eyelashes and looked into her face with an almost knowing pleading stare. At that moment, she knew.

She knew that what she said to her colleagues didn't matter.

What her boss thought of her didn't matter.

The dismissive way the organization pretended to care about their employees didn't matter.

All that mattered was her mental health, her happiness and the overall happiness of her son.She kissed his forehead, picked him up and walked back over to her desk. She sat down once again and wrote two words on that ruled paper, "I quit."

Then she picked up the phone and called the crisis line.

That's all that mattered.