I stink at goodbyes

After six years at UNH, I will pack up my office, clean out my lab and email my dissertation final draft to my advisor.  I should be celebrating.  Instead, I am feeling a swirl of emotions. I feel apprehension, relief, sadness and joy.  Its a strange combination. It is hard to leave a place that I have grown so much academically and professionally and celebrated milestones (got married, bought a house and had our daughter).  I have grown as a teacher and grown into my role as a PhD.  Its has been an adventure.  I even took a year off and came back to finish and it was surprisingly easy to come back (easier than I thought) and good for all of us.  

This year has been a big year.  A lot of transitions.

Isabel started day care, I went back to work and we moved. 

I am not a stranger to transition, I have been moving and schooling for the last ten years at 3 different institutions.  

This one feels different and here is why:

I spend more of my time here than anywhere else. This is the culmination of my career thus far and we have changed as a family.  i feel like I am leaving something behind this time, friendships, good memories and it sort of feels unfinished, lack of closure.  

It feels a little anticlimactic to pack up and go tomorrow, most of the faculty are out in the field and so are my fellow grad students so there won't be a big goodbye.

Maybe that is a good thing. I am not gonna lie, I have been emotional about leaving.

So tomorrow, I will pick Isabel up from school for the last time and head home.

I think I am more sad about taking Isabel out of school. Yea, me the one that felt such anxiety about sending her in the first place. Remember this? 

Her teachers have been giving me the sad face for weeks when I mention us moving on.  I know that they knew she'd only be in school until the end of the school year but it came so fast.  They have been amazing to her.

She has bloomed in school, I see her confidence growing, her indepence has bloomed and she is happy there. She has friends and she loves her teachers.  She dances, sings and has quite the vocabulary.  It warms my heart and makes me so happy.

I really wanted to keep her in a little longer but the reality is, her class is moving to the next room in a couple of weeks and I couldn't do that to her.  She is attached to her teachers and I think it will be hard to change too many times.  

I would be lying if I said I haven't cried about tomorrow.  I know that her teachers love her.  I have been in their shoes more than my 'mom shoes' because I have nannied before and I loved those kiddos.  

I am so happy that her school was a great experience but it is bittersweet.  Today, Isabel and I made a handprint thank you card for her teachers.  I hope they know how much we have loved them!