the last week.

This is my last week working the job I've had for the past 3 years.

It's been a sad, exciting, nerve-wracking, nostalgic, bittersweet week so far.

I work in a department of psychiatry on my college campus, so I work with secretaries, graduate students, lab assistants, doctors, fellows, etc. along with the mail guy and the coffee man and the UPS guy who always says "See you tomorrow!" as he's trying to hop right back into the elevator before the door closes.

I work next to a hospital that has an actual edible restaurant that we go to sometimes. For awhile there, they seemed to know me by my cookie purchase. (They have really, really delicious cookies!)

And this week I've had to say goodbye to all of them. The mailman, who I see for about a minute a day each and every day, said he's really going to miss me. The UPS guy too. I haven't told the coffee people yet, because I'm afraid of what that will do to my own psyche. But I'm definitely going to miss them.

My department got me a HUGE cake on Wednesday that read "Farewell Janae!" on it. It was a layer of chocolate cake, a layer of chocolate mousse, another layer of chocolate cake, and then a few layers of chocolate icing, including dark chocolate roses. I can't even begin to explain how delicious this cake was. (And will be, as I know there is still a little left over and I'm letting myself have a piece for breakfast tomorrow. It's my last day - go big or go home, right?)

Today a few of the people I got incredibly close with took me out for lunch. And by incredibly close, I mean incredibly close. I called one of them my "Minneapolis mom." I've seen her almost every work day for 3 years. She knows what my day is like just by the look on my face. When we said goodbye today (as she is working in a different location tomorrow) she was crying. And so was I.

And then she told me she's going to call me tomorrow and harass me a little bit.

I'm looking forward to it.

I guess all I'm saying is that it's the end of a chapter. A really big chapter in my life. This signals the end of college more for me than graduation did, I think. And it's difficult because I'm still not quite sure what's next.

What I do know is that I will be going through a lot of changes this August-September, and this is just the first.

But that cake...