After the gym, I went to Starbucks with Jeff and got a frappuccino. We picked up a pizza at Sobeys and ate it while watching Grey's Anatomy on the couch. I ended the night in the bathtub, reading a book.
I didn't go to the office. I didn't spend the night editing copy or writing social media posts. Apart from an Instagram post and a couple tweets, I barely wrote a word.
It was awesome.
Tuesday was a little more challenging.
Tuesday marked my last day as a staff reporter at The Daily Gleaner. I still find it wild to think about, honestly.
I started at the newspaper as a summer intern in May 2011, two weeks before I graduated from university. Although I worked for the campus paper while I was in school and had some freelance experience working for weeklies at home, the first day of my internship marked my first day working in the world of daily news.
My first day was May 9. I remember that because it was the night of the municipal election. Elections are nuts in a newsroom and I spent most of the night updating results, working in a Word document because IT hadn't set me up in the system yet.
The next day, it was head first into the pace of daily reporting.
I've kept that pace ever since. At the end of my summer internship, I signed a one year contract. Days before that contract expired, I was offered a full-time job.
Over the next few years, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people, go to many cool events, and experience things I simply wouldn't have had the chance to experience otherwise. I won a couple awards and I learned a LOT from some really incredible mentors I was blessed to call both colleagues and friends.
That said, a lot has changed since my internship in 2011, in the news industry, but also in my personal life. I'm turning 27 tomorrow. I've traded in the university party scene for volunteering in kids ministry at my church. I came back from a life-changing trip to Africa 59 days ago. I'm getting married in 43 days.
In that context, it doesn't seem so strange that I found myself craving a change in my professional life.
Next Tuesday, I'll start my new job in government communications. The joke, of course, is that I have gone over the dark side, but honestly, this is the lightest I've felt in months.
I'll miss the things that have become familiar over the last 5.5 years - Steve recording both his busy and his no-answer greeting daily, hanging out at the wall at Brookee's desk, coffee walks with Bill - but I'm excited to develop new routines, new familiar things.
Change is good, friends. I don't think it will necessarily be easy, but I do believe that and I'm excited about it.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
James 1:17
Take one step forward and don't look back
cause your past is dead and gone.
Your chains are broken, take your future back
'cause the best is yet to come
