So that's it, then. My boss handed me my last paycheck, thanked me for my work, and shook my hand in farewell. One year of work--finished. I feel a little sad, because these past two weeks, with the clock running out, I liked my job. It was a lot like it was at the beginning, with a lot to do, much to be taken care of. I'm consoling myself with the knowledge that my affection for this position surely would have been short-lived; reality has a way of showing up again in the end.

My boss is going to be in a world of hurt without me, I can say that. I don't think he's realized how much I've been doing around here. Even worse, I don't think he realized how much more I could have done, if only he'd given me the chance. His loss. Now he doesn't have anyone to help him. Not that I'm irreplaceable, but he'll have a hard time, I think. I'm proud of what I've done in the last year. It's a heady feeling, looking around a construction site, knowing that a certain wall is located just where it is because I told them to put it there. I could have had them put it a half-inch or a half-foot in the other direction, but I didn't. Good, strong stuff.

Anyway, that's over and done with, and we'll just have to see what happens next.

On a partly un-related note, I've decided this is a good time to take an extended vacation from the chore of updating this page. I've been keeping an online life chronicle for four years now, and I stopped learning about myself in the process of doing it about two years ago. For the past six months or so, this journal has been limping along on crippled legs. For the last two months, it's been kept alive only by the internet equivalent of an iron lung. This seems like the right time to let it go for awhile. Feel free to check back in a few months--only about half of the goodbyes in the world turn out to be forever.