Endings and Beginnings

I'm in the midst of the two day unemployment period betwixt jobs and it gave me occasion to stop and think about endings and beginnings a little bit. All day Friday I kept thinking of a line from the Semisonic song, Closing Time: "Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." I think it really does a wonderful job of capturing what I was thinking about all day on Friday.

There were a lot of mixed emotions for me Friday, and indeed the whole of my two weeks after I gave notice at my old job. One doesn't just up and leave someplace after spending 12 years of one's life there without stopping and thinking about the past. I have a lot of really good memories there and I know that I'll live in legend at the office for a long time to come (trust me, there are some great stories that really deserve legend status). I think about deciding to move to Colorado 12 years ago to be closer to the mountains that I love so much and the stability that the job provided me. There was excitement at that new beginning and there's some regret to be leaving some of that behind.

Like the line from the song says, though, every new beginning must come at the expense of some other beginning's end. I think that I had gotten into a rut in life at my last job and I really felt that if I intend to grow further it was time for a change. It was a decision that I made with some trepidation. As I mentioned in a previous post, I think we as humans crave the comfort of the known. And yet we're meant to grow and sometimes that growth can only occur by trying something new, sometimes radically new.

And so here I sit at the end of one beginning and the start of a new one. As Monday morning gets closer and closer I feel the excitement at the thought of the new beginning starting to erase some of the fear and regret about leaving the past behind. I will always be grateful to TBCCI for the 12 years of memories that they provided me and I am glad that we were able to part ways amicably. And I look forward to establishing a new set of memories at BBC.