Endings and Beginnings: The Circle of My Life

Next week will be the last week I will be required to show up everyday, on time, for my full-time job, until December. This realization has hit me several times, but as I clean my office and think about the notes I have to leave in order for the next person to know what to do, how, and where to find the files they will need, it feels so -- final. I know I'm coming back. I keep telling myself that, over and over, and yet, I feel like I'm leaving this job and these people, and it mostly makes me sad.

Let me be perfectly honest, I get frustrated a LOT at my current job. Office politics, state government politics, people's crazy habits and tempers, the tedious work I do when I know there is a quicker solution...all of these things send me flying off the handle after a long day at work. My husband gets the brunt of my rantings on work-related topics, and I love him for indulging me. But when it all comes down to it...the people here are crazy, and difficult, and at times, even a little dense in the head, but I love them in some strange way because of it. To know that I won't hear one tell me that she appreciates me four times a day, every day...to realize I'll never hear a "What the f..." out of another's mouth moments later, all of this I will miss because I have grown accustomed to the steadiness of it.

I will miss my boss, as well. I feel horrible for leaving her right now, when she needs me most, but she understands that I need to finish my schooling, for me, for my kids, for my future, and so she sends me off with a sigh, but with best wishes and a good, "Oh, you get out of here and do what you need to do." You really cannot ask for much more from a boss than what I get from her.

So as my final year of school begins, I take this time away from work and feel as if I'm losing something, or saying goodbye. I tell them all, I tell myself, "I'll see you later!" But I just can't help but feel a little sad.