This is it.

Today's my last day at my job! It feels like the last day of school -- you go because you have to, but you don't feel that usual weight of responsibility. It's a wonderful feeling. I am actually doing some work before my exit interview at 11, then I turn in my computer and wait it out for the day. Not sure if they're going to release me early, so we'll see. I brought a book just in case. My cubicle is sad and empty, but I'm happily munching on last night's (slightly undercooked) banana bread and sipping on ice cold water. I just hope I get out in time to enjoy some of this beautiful fall day that's graced us after the rain.

I'll also be without a computer for about a week or until I bite the bullet and buy one (GUH), so things will get pretty quiet around here. I'm looking forward to non-stop crocheting, reading, and scribbling in my notebook.

I'll miss these nerds.

I'm doing it again. I'm still full from my farewell lunch at Union Street with the old team sans Sean. Then I had a little meeting with my boss when we got back. The sincerity in his voice when he was saying that I was an amazing employee (me?!) almost made me take it all back. Of course I know, through all this, the second guessing and the self-imposed guilt, that this is all for the best. That I owe nothing to this company. But it isn't the company that I feel a loyalty to, is it? It's this team, the community I've become a part of, the lunches in the atrium and the inside jokes about how loud our office neighbors are. It's the number of books I've read with a daily 3 hour roundtrip commute for the past couple years. It's the bad coffee that I still think of as a treat at 2:30 in the afternoon. I'm drinking one now. I've become comfortable here, and we all know how comfortable those comfort zones can be.

The truth is, no matter if it's because of my sap of a personality or the true end of an era, I'll miss this dumb little cubicle, the smell of bagels on a Wednesday morning, being able to lose myself in a book or an early morning nap because my stop is the last on the train. I'll miss the twenty minute rides from work to our home when Mike picks me up.

I've received so many responses to a goodbye email I sent out to our IT blogging community, and it's incredibly humbling. It's always rewarding to feel like you've actually been a part of something, that your absence will be felt. Geez, I guess I will miss these nerds.

Between sheets.

I absolutely love this song, especially on a rainy day. It's romantic and breathes that Sunday-morning-becomes-Sunday-afternoon-and-still-in-bed into even the most mundane of Wednesdays. But today is anything but just another Wednesday. Today is my last Wednesday in this office, working for this company. It's my last Bagel Wednesday (probably a good thing, you'll agree), the last time Mike will pick me up from here unproductively early (love dating a teacher). I just sent out my last batch of prizes for community members, and I'm compiling all of the final emails I'll have to send. My team just went off to a meeting without me. It's strange, this moving on, this progress. No matter the exciting of the new, there is always the bittersweet, the second guessing of what is being left behind. I am a creature of guilt, of rehashing, and looking back, so I understand that leaving a big corporate company isn't all that sad. But it's marking such a major milestone in my life. It's me, going after what I want, convincing myself I am capable, and convincing others. Getting a chance, and moving away from this life of paycheck to paycheck, of second and third jobs, of crying because I forgot my student loan payments were supposed to go up this month. It isn't some major breakthrough in the world of salaries -- don't get me wrong -- but it's baby steps away from the ingrained mantra that I will always struggle, will always have less than, will always care about money. These might be delusions of grandeur, but I'm pretending I'm still between sheets and indulging.

I can say it now.

 

I have a new job! It's been in the works for a few weeks now, and I received an offer on Friday. (What a great way to start the weekend, let me tell you.) The only thing was the bullet of anticipation for giving my two weeks notice. Don't worry, it didn't dampen my weekend too much. Yesterday I sat down in a conference room with my boss and handed him my resignation letter, and today I received the hard copy of the job offer. I'm so excited for this next step in my life, this next step that I've felt I was on the cusp of for so long. Hoping with my nails and teeth that I was almost there, that it was just over the edge I was talking myself into reaching. And there it is. I have two more weeks left at my current job, then a week in Georgia, then a new leg of my career begins.

My head is reeling from all of the information in such a tiny packet, but it's a good kind of reeling.

Mike's parents gave me a gift card to Joann's Fabrics, and last weekend we on a mini shopping spree. It was exciting, brainstorming all of the gifts I want to make for people. Today I learned how to crochet a flower for some headbands I'm making. It's so simple if you already know how to crochet, and I feel so accomplished for a Wednesday!