I am mildly terrified.
Big changes are always terrifying, especially when you know they鈥檙e coming and are not quite sure what they mean. Will this change be for the good? Will it be for the bad? Were you right to make the choice to take that leap, make that change, turn your life into a new and unknown direction?
But those decisions need to be made, and if you don鈥檛 make those changes you will inevitably regret not making them. Every major choice that changes your life comes with so many unknowns that it鈥檚 impossible to tell if it鈥檚 the right choice until long after the fact.
Twelve years ago in April, I also made a choice that terrified me, I got in my car and drove to Yorkton, I moved into an upstairs room in a small farmhouse with a bunch of clothes and a small laptop, because I had just got a job working at the News Review. I eventually got a real apartment soon after - and had furniture too, though I didn鈥檛 have a desk so I had to use my big desktop computer on the floor.
It was a change, a lot of change, and for the weeks between the day I found out I had the job and the day I started I wondered if it was the right change, and whether or not I would succeed in my new role.
The years since have seen good moments and bad moments. I was able to photograph the Olympic torch relay, I was on the radio because I covered a murder trial. I interviewed many musicians, I made jokes that only made sense to me. I met friends, I met the woman who I plan on marrying, I have a house that we will be spending a large amount of money renovating. I found out that the News Review was going to be rolled into Yorkton This Week the day before I was going on a massive road trip to Arizona. I ruined my pants in Theodore, I slipped and fell at a protest.
There have been stories that were better than expected and stories that fell through at the last minute. There were late night phone calls - in particular, there is one excellent former YRHS student with a bright future who was constantly phoning me back for interviews after 9:00 p.m. - and there were weekends where I didn鈥檛 even know which way was up. 聽
I have a lot of memories, in other words, as you would expect from someone who has been in roughly the same job for a decade. And since I鈥檝e been in roughly the same job for so long, going off to a new one is a bit intimidating.
But this week, I turn left instead of right, and I turn towards something different and a big change in my life. And as much as the change might be scary, it鈥檚 also exciting, I鈥檓 happy to be doing something new. In a decade from now, I will look back and think about how even though it was frightening at the time, it was the right decision to make.
It was the right decision to come to Yorkton, and now I feel it鈥檚 the right decision to leave Yorkton This Week. It鈥檚 never easy to change your life, and it鈥檚 always mildly terrifying, but sometimes it鈥檚 just what you have to do. And I have to make a change.
Goodbye.
