I’m done!

I am presently in my last hour of employment at North Greenville University’s library. In a little while, I’m going to walk out of these doors, and I am going to be free. I won’t be truly free of a job as such, but definitely free from one that has been, well, let’s just say, interesting over the past two years. I am moving on, and that’s all I will say about that. I have chosen to leave with a good attitude until the very end. Afterall, I can only control MY attitudes and actions. And I don’t want or need to control anyone else’s. I feel like because of this, I am able to leave on good terms. My boss told me “I did a good job up there.” That’s enough.

I will get to celebrate tonight with friends over some amazing pizza and Greek salad at a place called Acropolis Pizza. And in the morning, I’ll have orientation for my new job, which officially starts Monday. I will have six weeks of training, but I’ll post a seperate blog on that later.

For now, I’d just like to commemorate my last day at NGU, which is a pretty major turning point in my life. It’s a big moving forward point and the time to release myself from this place. I will remember it as my place of higher learning instead of my first “real” job.  I love this place for my college years and the people I met along the way, and that is why it is special to me.

Goodbye Hester Memorial Library. Goodbye Archives.

It’s out there now.

I made the phone call just a few minutes ago that I had been dreading. A call to my boss telling her I was not planning on coming back to work on the scheduled date. I dreaded it because of how she might respond, not because I didn’t want to leave my work. I’m excited to leave. It’s time for a change. The hour long drive just isn’t working anymore with gas prices.

But her response was placid. Calm and a “thanks for telling me” attitude. It was quite a big moment, but understated by her not-at-all-phased response. Maybe it’s because so many other people have left. The front desk guy got married and moved. The newly hired reference librarian left because she found a better job. The processing girl is thinking about leaving. So I guess I was just another employee leaving the field, just another position to be refilled. Maybe she expected it.

My boss told me it was my choice weather I wanted to work a notice or not. I have no need for closure. So my plan is to go back on August 13 only if I haven’t been contacted by any of the other positions I’ve applied for. And that’s only because I would seriously like to have a little bit of pay if it’s going to be a longer amount of time with out a new job than I expected.

I’m unemotional about this, which is completely strange for me. Usually, everything is emotional for me. But I’ve realized that I honestly have nothing left attached there. No unaccomplished goals, no unfulfilled desires, not even any incredibly solid relationships. Maybe it’s just a fact of life. Maybe it’s just my choice in mindset. But whatever it is, I actually feel a sense of freedom, which unfortunately means that my job was just another yoke to bear.

Embrace the Present

I work in a library. More specifically, I work in the Archive of a library. This morning, I was reading the letters of David Ballenger, written during the American civil war to his wife and family. Mr. Ballenger was a local here in the town that I work in, and our library owns several of the original letters he sent.

I found myself so captured by this man’s words. He wrote of a deep love that he had for his wife and with a sense of urgency that we have no need for in this present time. And it was in his urgency of writing that I learned something very profound today.

He often began his letters with a phrase saying he “embraced the present” to write a few lines to tell his loved ones that he was alright and what of the war he was enduring. He knew the importance of that moment – that single moment he had still alive – and he would not take it for granted. How often I let spare moments slip from my hands! And for what reason? That I may do what could have been done already when I so please? I know I am not in the middle of a battlefield, but I should – we all should – refrain from living life as if we know how many moments are left, as if we control the number.

I have not found an easy way to do this; I am not sure that there is an easy one. But I feel deep within my soul that we must try and that it can be done.