It was 2:00 a.m. in his apartment, with only the computer screen glowing a faint blue. Ethan stared at the blinking cursor in the document titled \u201cResignation Letter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was the third time this month he\u2019d opened this document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the day, he worked as a dispatcher at a logistics company, where the ringing of the phone was like a relentless drumbeat, continuing from morning till night. Customers urging him on, drivers complaining, system crashes, weather delays\u2026 Every problem felt like a thin thread tightening around his nerves. He remembered saying \u201cI\u2019m sorry, we\u2019re working on it\u201d forty-seven times over the phone today, his voice as steady as a pre-programmed machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But now, late at night when all was quiet, those suppressed emotions slowly began to surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He typed a line: \u201cDear Manager, after careful consideration\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then he paused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He recalled 3:00 p.m. that afternoon, when Lily, the new intern, had emerged from the break room with red-rimmed eyes, clutching a cup of cold coffee. She whispered, \u201cEthan, am I not cut out for this job?\u201d He handed her a tissue and said, \u201cIt\u2019s not that you\u2019re not cut out for it\u2014it\u2019s just that this job isn\u2019t easy to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also recalled last month, when Mark, a longtime employee, suddenly resigned. Before leaving, he patted him on the shoulder and said, \u201cEthan, don\u2019t push yourself too hard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He deleted the line he\u2019d just typed and started over: \u201cI\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he deleted it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t that he was afraid\u2014it was just that he suddenly realized that no matter how beautifully written this letter was, it wouldn\u2019t solve anything. His rent wouldn\u2019t be any lower because of it, his credit card bills wouldn\u2019t magically disappear, and the subway commute tomorrow morning would still be just as crowded. Quitting wasn\u2019t the end; it was just trading one kind of exhaustion for another, unknown kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He leaned back in his chair and looked out the window. The city hadn\u2019t quite fallen asleep yet; in the distance, scattered lights glimmered like stars strewn across the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He suddenly remembered that on his way home from work today, as he passed the bakery on the corner, the aroma of freshly baked croissants wafted out onto the sidewalk. He bought one, and when he took a bite, the flaky crust crumbled all over the ground, yet for a moment, he felt an inexplicable sense of peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps that\u2019s just how life is\u2014it isn\u2019t something you can turn the page on with a single letter, but rather something you endure bit by bit through countless moments of \u201cjust a little longer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end, he didn\u2019t send that resignation letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, he saved it to his drafts folder and titled it \u201cMaybe Someday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then he shut down his computer and went to the kitchen to heat up a cup of milk for himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outside the window, dawn was breaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He knew tomorrow would be exhausting again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But at least tonight, he allowed himself to get a good night\u2019s sleep first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Resignation Letter Written but Never Sent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,19],"class_list":["post-490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heal","tag-feeling","tag-work"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":492,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions\/492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}