EMPLOYERS always get two weeks notice when a worker’s about to leave. I figure readers are owed the same courtesy.
Yes, it’s true. A little less than two weeks from now, Heather and I will be returning to the Front Range of Colorado so I can take a reporting job with the Longmont Daily Times-Call. It’s a bigger paper. It’s in my old hometown with family right at our doorstep. In every way, it’s a fantastic opportunity.
And it’s still hard to say goodbye.
Up until now, none of this has really felt real. It’s all come together too quickly, too easily. If I tried to write this in a novel, the critics would throw it out immediately for having too many coincidences and unbelievable plot twists.
What can I say? Real life’s like that sometimes.
Heather and I have been keeping a weather eye out for Colorado jobs for a while now. We’re not dissatisfied with Emporia by any means, but as relatives have gotten engaged, gotten married or just gotten older, we’ve thought that it might be nice to have some of them at closer range. Up until recently, there was never an opportunity that panned out, despite the occasional close call.
Then Heather spotted the Longmont ad. It was already a week old when she saw it, which might as well be the Stone Age in journalism terms. Still, we decided to take a shot.
The paper actually called back.
The call came just a few days before we were due to leave on vacation. Ironically, we were heading to Longmont anyway, to celebrate Heather’s 30th birthday. Now an editor wanted to know if I would mind adding a job interview to the itinerary.
“Oh, I suppose so ...” I didn’t say. In real life, the agreement came out so fast that it might not be measurable by modern physicists.
The interview came on Tuesday — Heather’s birthday. Less than 24 hours later (on her sister’s birthday), the job offer came.
“I don’t believe in beating around the bush,” the editor explained.
And like that, life changed.
Since then, the world has begun to take a turn for the chaotic. There are things to pack, rooms to clean, a million things to do. And since that offer, there’s been one more thing I didn’t expect — hesitation.
I suppose it’s normal to feel that way when you’re taking a big step. There’s the uncertainty before starting college, the nervousness before a wedding day, the big swallow when you take your first apartment away from home. Every time the questions are the same: Am I ready for this? Was I better off where I was? Am I doing the right thing?
But even by those standards, this has been a hard thing to face.
Emporia has never just been a place to live and work for us. It’s been the place where we realized how green hills could be. It’s the place where we discovered fireflies and ice storms and back-yard rabbits.
Most of all, it’s been a place where we have found more friends than we could have imagined. Teens and seniors. Co-workers and neighbors. We’ve made fast friends in the theater company, at church, in a million other places.
And every one of those faces makes it that much harder to let go.
Home isn’t just where you hang your hat and earn your paycheck. It’s where your friends are. And from this point on, I know there will be a part of Emporia that is forever home to Heather and me.
The Rocky Mountains are calling. Soon we’ll answer. But not without the occasional backward look.
After all, there’s a home in them thar hills.
Scott Rochat’s e-mail address is rochat@emporiagazette.com.
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Posted by Phil_Dillon (anonymous) on September 12, 2007 at 3:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Scott
I wish you and Heather well.
We've occasionally sparred, but we've never lost our sense of admiration for one another.
I'll close with an old Irish blessing:
"May the strength of three be in your journey."
Best wishes. Godspeed.
Phil Dillon
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