The Sad Goodbye

The word "bittersweet" pretty well sums up how I've been feeling the past two weeks. I'm excited and ready to move on to new things, but the desire to stay here with the people I've grown to love is making it hard to leave.

I don't have a lot of friends to say goodbye to. In fact there are no more than five that I do anything with on a remotely regular basis. This doesn't bother me; I kind of prefer it that way, but there are still many others I'm having a hard time telling goodbye. There is one, though, that stands out above the rest. Her name is Lacy.

Lacy and I have worked at the same store for exactly one year now. I still hardly know her, but over this past month we've begun talking and have developed something that could maybe pass as a friendship. The thing that makes this unique is that Lacy is a pretty girl. I've always had a hard time talking to pretty girls, but with her it wasn't that hard. She was fun to talk to and in the beginning it came pretty easy.

As time went by I started liking her, and I think she liked me too. I wanted to get to know her better but I knew I would soon be leaving, so I was afraid to get any closer to her. When the day came for me to put in my two weeks notice I knew I needed to tell her. When I did I could see the shock of sadness hit her face. She tried to hide it, and she did a good job. But it was there nonetheless. And when my last day rolled around I could hear a hint of sadness in her voice.

It killed me to know I was hurting her, even if was only a little bit. I hate leaving just as I was beginning to get to know her. It's unlikely anything would have come from it, but I still wish I knew her more.

The End and the Beginning

For the past two months I have been talking to my uncle about the details of me coming to work for him on the farm. Finally the arrangements have been made and the date is set. As of now it looks like the last day of February will be my final day here in what has become my home. But I'm not too sad about leaving because in addition to leaving home, I'll be going home.

Since I was a little boy I've been going to the farm for holidays and visits, but every time I would inevitably have to leave, and as I did it would be with a heavy-heart, because I really didn't want to. I loved it there, I wanted to stay there. But now I'll be going there to stay. I'm sure it won't feel just as it did when I was five because I won't just be exploring, but I'll be working. My time will probably be filled with work. But the work won't be for some boss that hardly knows me, and cares about me even less. It'll be for my family and with my family, and it will be work that I expect I will enjoy. Instead of being confined to a retail store where I have to deal with the general public answering their questions and helping them find things, I will be working with my hands, driving equipment, and learning how to tear them apart to repair them.

The more I think about it the more excited and eager I become. Some nights I lie awake for hours thinking about how it might all turn out. On paper it looks and sounds so good. But then on the other hand, I also wonder about why it might not turn out like I hope. Maybe the work I think I will like will quickly turn into a dull routine. Maybe I'll find that all the things I thought I didn't like about where I now live were better than I realized, and I was only taking what I had for granted. Or perhaps the age difference between me and my uncles will make it hard for us to relate and it will still feel like I'm working for someone who hardly knows me.

To be honest, I’m scared. The seeds of doubt are in my mind. But in addition to the doubt there is hope. If nothing else, I’m hopeful that somehow it will all work out in the end. Even if I do find that it is all just one more thing I’m not meant to do, then so be it, because if that is the case then it was worth it.