The end of an era

Eight and a half years.
One hundred and two months.
Two hundred and four pay periods.
Four hundred and eight weeks.
One thousand six hundred and thirty-two shifts.

No matter how I look at it, it’s a long period of time to stay in one place. Most of my friends I went to uni or school with are on their second or third careers and some in their 5th or 6th company and have held some 20 odd different positions. As for me, I’ve stayed with just the one job, with the same department across only two hospitals. Albeit, I stayed begrudgingly at times and if there had not been bills to pay, there were many times I would have walked.

Yesterday, I said goodbye to the workplace which has been my home for the past seven and a bit years. When I first started there, I was a rookie with only a bit under two years of clinical experience under my belt. It’s astonishing how much changes in that period of time….some of them have started families, others moved into management or inter-state. And gradually that pesky itch kept growing – the need to do something new and find another challenge to cut my teeth on.

It’s been a long time coming but now it’s my turn to head off to the big bad beyond again and try something new. But doing that involves saying goodbye to people who have become good friends. I will miss them very much in this next chapter of my life but I know they won’t be very far away at all.

The message on the front of the card they gave me yesterday reads “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. – Henry David Thoreau“. They are words to live by and I hope I can do exactly that.

It's never been this clean...may it serve the next owner well.