Mood: Nostalgic. Feel like pining for the old days.
Music: None, but it could be Barry Manilow's Old Songs :)
Mind: Lost it. Go bye-bye.

I lost my last post. It made me so mad that I decided to take a couple of days away from Blogger.

In the interim, my computer crashed completely. Paul brought me the laptop, but ... in a story way too long to be bothered with right now ... I left it at his house and now have nothing at all to ... compute ... with.

Oh well.

You know, I'm really starting to get down about leaving work. Usually when a big change like this comes around, I fight it by writing poetry and diving into work even further. But now I don't have any work to dive into. This is incredibly depressing to me.

See, I am firmly convinced that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Since January of 1999, I have been a reporter, a copy editor, a managing editor and an editor in chief. Not to mention that I've also been tech support, moral support and back support. I've seen the athletic fund funneled into the academic fund, and I've seen the two funds separated again.

In three years, I've seen people come and go -- from presidents of the university to athletes and coaches.

I saw a slice of life through this newspaper, and it was quite a wake up call. When Tic Price was forced to resign his position as head basketball coach because of an affair with a student, I realized that even good men could make really bad mistakes. When Hillary Johnson didn't show up to teach one day and was later found dead by a serial killer, I realized sometimes death strikes in the total prime of life. And when terrorists took down the World Trade Center in New York, I realized that real people -- even news people -- could be overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness and pain.

I'd like to say with some certainty that I'm walking away from this a stronger woman. And I have no doubt that I'm better for the experience, but I can't say that I've been imbued with strength because of the pain I've felt while hiding behind headlines and flats. See, I never expected to need antidepressants and antianxiety agents to get through this day. I never thought I'd cry because the pain in my heart hurt far worse than any physical affliction ever could. I never thought the day would come when I'd say that no news -- no sound, no hurt -- was good news.

I'm going to miss the people that have passed through my life because of this job. I'm going to miss Candy's everpresent influence and advice. I'm going to miss Matt hanging up the phone when a caller gets out of line. I'm going to miss Marcus's pseudo-chauvinist column and Jeff Lee's pseudo-chauvinist dating techniques. I'm going to miss the laughs with Johanna and Christy, the arguments between Shana and Lynne and even the friction between Chuck and the other editors.

And I'm going to miss my cartoonists -- from old-school Louis Varnell to the new generation of Khara and Mike's LabRats team. I'm going to miss Jason Warner's photos of credit cards, Gene Allmendinger's photos of pretty girls, Scottie Hartsfield's photos of sports (but not news), and Bryan's photos to fill in all those gaps.

And I'm going to miss Rick Russell's bar tabs.

I can't believe that I was blessed to have such a fun, deep, day-by-day and spontaneous job. I can't believe that this is it -- Goodbye -- and in less than a week I will clean out my office for good.

I'm not ready.

On my wall, I have two very special documents. One is a card signed by all of my coworkers at the Commercial Appeal last summer. The other is a sheet of paper signed by a lot of my Helmsman coworkers at a staff event last year.

I asked the Helmsman staff not to sign their names under their comments, so I don't know who actually wrote, "You do a great job. I want to be just like you."

But who said it isn't important. It's impact on me is what really matters.