Leaving sucks…

It seems my internship is ending again, for real this time. I have recently accepted a job back home as an Environmental Health and Safety Technician at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. My emotions drift back and forth over this, between excitement for a new, “real” job and twinges of regret that I have to leave here to get there. That’s the price of moving on, unfortunately; you just can’t have it both ways. It’s also a difficult thing to fathom, that I will at last have “permanent” job security with insurance, a rigid schedule, and more responsibility. The question remains: can I handle the new responsibility?

It’s amazing how many loose ends accumulate over time. I suppose this happens everywhere as priorities change and little things get set aside. On my list of things to do are to clean up some Environmental Assessment work in progress, update our GIS system with rare plant observations and fence type inventory data, officially label and glue all herbarium voucher specimens I’ve been collecting, get the truck (trusty ol’ Bernie) an oil change, ship out herbarium specimens from my seed collections to the Smithsonian and the Rocky Mountain National Herbarium, link reservoir photos and data to mapped locations, and of course clean out my cubicle and work truck. But the hardest part of wrapping up my internship (again), is saying goodbye to everyone (again). I’ve driven away from here before when I thought my time was done, and it was a very sad day. I imagine it won’t be any easier this time, especially knowing it is official.

But these things happen, I suppose. I’ve had a great experience here, and I’ve learned more than than I could begin to conceptualize. But alas, the nature of temporary work is to eventually move on and hope that we’ve learned enough to be more dangerous than we were yesterday. So here I go, fingers crossed.