An empty office.  The start of a new life.  My office clock stopped my second to last day of work.  Battery worn down, probably.  Fitting metaphor.  I will say that few people have probably been as feted as I was leaving this job.  A Halloween costume party thrown by my coworker (Ben as the “Bread Winner”), a goodbye brunch at work, and then a drinks/nibbles party thrown the Monday after I left.  I left a little care package of sweets and carbs in the nook outside my office with little mementos of me for staff so they wouldn’t miss me as much.  Little “mini me’s” on popsicle sticks so they can have pocket Amys.  So whenever they wonder:  “What would Amy do?” They can pull me out and talk to me.  Or use it to mouth off to annoying clients.  “It wasn’t me that said that.  It was Amy.”

My last day was also celebrated with a a wonderful dinner treat by Ben at Carpenter and Main Restaurant in Norwich, VT.  We sat in a little dining nook and had a wonderful bottle of wine and good food.  It has been a weird emotional time.  It’s akin to leaving a relationship where you still love the person.  I loved the team I worked on.  I just didn’t love the work anymore.  Maybe I will again one day, maybe I won’t.  Right now I am loving not having to listen to people’s heart-breaking and most often self-created drama and also not having to get on staff’ about getting their paperwork done on time.

But when it rains it pours.  I have a potential temporary job offer that just popped up this past week with the Department of Children and Families in VT, as my friend termed it: as her “paperwork bitch”.  Pretty much paperwork and follow up phone calls to help the staff stay on top of crazily stacked caseloads.  I told the director that I didn’t want any client interaction because why get out of the frying pan just to jump into the fire.  But the pay would be about the same if not more than what I was making as an assistant director of a clinic with a Master’s degree.  To do paperwork and phone calls.  God bless working for the government!  If  it works out, I will start a few mornings per week and then go to about 30 hours after the holidays through March.  I have started full-time at King Arthur Flour (Tuesdays – Saturdays 1:30 – 10pm) so this would make for a very busy schedule until Christmas.  AND I have been officially offered a job in the farm stand at Cedar Circle Farm!  This is very exciting.  I’ll start in April and go until October-ish.  Then if things work out, will start up again at King Arthur seasonally.

So the next year or so is patched out.  Funny how jobs just seemed to drop out of the sky.  If there is any advice that anyone would want to take from me, it’s to seek out opportunities to do things you love, even if it’s only volunteering at first.  Make connections and see where the journey goes.  I am getting used to physically intensive work.  In the spring/summer I can be outside some of the time and getting into the swing of farm life.  Life has come full-circle for me, coming from suburban Boston to rural New Hampshire and becoming, as my Dad puts it: an organic tree-loving hippie.  I think I am becoming who I want to be and while the long-term future is unclear, maybe this will be enough.