Sweet euphoria

The only thing sweeter than getting your first real job is leaving it.

I was foolish enough to feel like this day would never come, in spite of the packed boxes in my living room and the contacts to whom I have bid adieu. Still, the Telegram office persisted, yellow and stale like an old donut.

Routines, habits, normalcy, they have a way of erasing time, or maybe just mixing it all up. The process of sorting through the remnants of this year — the old newspapers, the board agendas, page upon sloppy page of notes — only muddled things more.

But suddenly it was 4:15, and I had shared with my replacement the last piece of advice. It was time to go. Making my way around the newsroom, shaking hands with people who had imperceptibly become my friends, I felt it already beginning to slide away.

One last walk down the long hall. I ignored the old headlines that have welcomed me to my office every day for the past 13 months. I kicked open the heavy back door and stepped into the bright heat of the parking lot, grinning like a dumb ass.

And then I laughed, threw my head back and laughed. C'mon, man, I told myself, it's only been a year. I thought about it a second longer. Then I laughed again.