I Was Right to Leave. I Still Missed It.

Recently, I was remembering my earlier career when I noticed some charge in my body. I got curious about what that part of me was holding, and why.

Six years ago, I moved to Switzerland, leaving my job and the working life I had built in the UK. I knew moving had been right for me. And yet, this part was holding grief.

There were things I loved

I had questioned my career in IT for years, even though there were parts of it I enjoyed.

In my last UK role, I loved solving complex problems. Those What the hell happened here? moments: troubleshooting, testing different possibilities and tracking down exactly where something had gone wrong. I enjoyed bouncing ideas around with colleagues and figuring it out together. I called us the Dream Team.

I also liked being the bridge between people and technology, asking questions to understand what they wanted to achieve and helping them work out how best to use the system to do it. There was something satisfying about the immediate feedback. Write something, run a query, get an answer. When everything worked: Yes. There it is.

Six weeks before deciding to move to Switzerland, I had been promoted. My contribution finally felt recognised. When I told my boss I was leaving, he was disappointed to lose me but glad I wasn’t leaving because I disliked the job or the people.

I had the travel bug, but I had never lived in another country. It was something I had always wanted to do. My friends knew that and were happy for me, with occasional pleas to stay.

There were good reasons to go. There were also good things to leave behind.

Getting on with what came next

When I moved, I thought I might find another IT job in Switzerland. Choosing a different path came later, after an uncomfortable period of not knowing.

There was plenty to occupy me: adapting, exploring possibilities and eventually studying and retraining. Some parts missed financial independence and the reassurance of being established. Much of my attention went towards what came next.

During the pandemic, I found comfort in thinking office life would have changed anyway. The banter wouldn’t have been the same. That helped.

I could reassure myself that moving had made sense. What I had not given much room to was the loss.

What I had not grieved

As I stayed with the part that held some grief, I began to understand what it missed: working alongside people who knew me and valued my contribution, even when I doubted myself, and feeling that I belonged.

I missed bringing baked goods into the office, lunches with colleagues, the banter and the camaraderie. Those ordinary things had been part of a life I valued.

This part didn’t need another explanation of why leaving made sense. It needed space to miss what had mattered.

Six years after the move, I let myself feel the sadness and the tears. As the grief moved through me, I was left with a sense of gratitude for what I had experienced.

Later, while tidying files, I found something I had written around the move. There were the people I valued and the things I would miss. Reading it brought back more: the dance community where I had genuinely felt I belonged. And the food. London is a foodie’s dream.

I was only trying to tidy my files. I hadn’t expected to meet that version of myself again.

The document made something clear: I had acknowledged the good. What came much later was allowing myself to feel the loss.

Compassion for who we were then

Sometimes we make leaving easier by painting what came before as entirely bad. It can quieten doubt and distance us from the pain of what was good.

But we can also lose sight of the connection, the wonderful moments and the reasons we stayed. We can become hard on the parts of us that were attached, even when their affection was for something real.

We may have needed security, recognition, belonging or simply a way to get through. Different priorities now don’t make those earlier needs less valid, or our earlier choices foolish.

I could feel grateful for what I had, sad that it was over, and glad I had left.

Leaving had been right for me. That didn’t mean everything I left had to have been wrong.

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