Over time, I began to notice how often I had used work as a substitute for feeling things. If I could organize a problem, assign a deadline, and find the responsible party, I felt temporarily safe from its emotional cost. But grief didn't respect spreadsheets, and trust couldn't be repaired by finding the right formula. I learned to sit with sadness without immediately reaching for my phone or an unfinished task, which was much harder than any logistical problem I'd handled at the freight company.
My job became busier as winter approached. A major client changed its distribution network, and the transition required rerouting shipments through facilities that had rarely handled that volume before. My department was under pressure, and I volunteered to lead a project documenting where delays began rather than simply blaming whichever driver arrived late. It was the kind of work I enjoyed, detailed enough to require patience and practical enough that the results could be measured.
I spent weeks visiting distribution centers, speaking with dispatchers, and tracking the small mistakes that repeated themselves across different shifts. One facility had an outdated delivery window, another had a loading procedure that depended on a single employee being present, and a third had never updated its contact list after a supervisor retired. None of those problems was glamorous, but together they were costing the company money and exhausting people who worked hard. I built a plan to address them, and for the first time in months I felt my attention belong entirely to something other than the breakup.
Ellen presented the results to senior leadership in January. The new procedures improved delivery consistency, reduced unnecessary overtime, and gave the teams clearer ways to report problems before they became emergencies. When the promotion opportunity opened, she encouraged me to apply rather than waiting to be noticed. I did, and several weeks later I became regional logistics operations manager with a salary increase large enough to change my financial plans for the year.
I called my mother first, then Wyatt. Mom said Grandma June would have been proud of the way I'd kept working through a difficult season, and Wyatt said the new title sounded like something that ought to come with a better chair. I laughed and told him the chair was probably the same one. He suggested celebrating at a hockey game, and that became our default answer to good news for the rest of the winter.
The Blue Jackets games helped in ways I hadn't expected. There was something restorative about sitting in a loud arena with a friend, arguing about penalties and watching people cheer for reasons that had nothing to do with either of our personal lives. Wyatt wore the same old jersey every time, insisting it was lucky despite abundant evidence to the contrary. I bought a newer one and began to recognize the regular faces in our section, people who knew nothing about my canceled wedding and didn't need to.