The End of an Era

For my current job, I travel about 4-5 times a year for conferences and courses, so I have been to a lot of places I might not have gotten to see otherwise! Just to recap, here’s a list of all the cities I’ve visited because of my job over the last three years:

• Reno – September 2009
• Houston – January 2010
• Oklahoma City – June 2010
• Minneapolis – July 2011
• Columbus – September 2010
• San Diego – January 2011
• Indianapolis – June 2011
• Kansas City – July 2011
• Charlotte – September 2011
• New Orleans – September 2011
• Sacramento – November 2011
• San Antonio – January 2012
• St. Louis – June 2012

That’s a pretty long list of cities! The only ones I would probably have gone to visit independent of my job are San Diego, New Orleans, and San Antonio, but I’m so glad I got to see them all! I can honestly say that pretty much every city on that list exceeded my expectations, regardless of how low they may have been going in.

Tomorrow, I am leave for a conference in St. Louis for five nights for work, and it is going to be my very LAST trip with my current job.

After 3 years and 2 months, I am leaving my current position for a new opportunity at a different association in DC. The move is extremely bittersweet because I actually really love my current job (most of the time) and have grown very close with my coworkers, so I am really sad to be leaving. When I was interviewing, I didn’t really take much time to think about leaving the current place and was more looking forward to the next stage in my career, but when I put my notice in the week before last, it hit me.

I won’t be seeing these same faces of my coworkers five days of the week.

I won’t be seeing the members of the organization who I’ve seen several times a year for the last three years.

I won’t be at a place that I know inside and out and have been at more than any other place for the last three years.

I won’t have already proven myself.

With that said, this new opportunity was one I couldn’t walk away from. It’s a huge step up professionally and is making me feel like a real grown up, even if I have technically been one for some time. I don’t want to go into too many details on here, but my new title is Director of Corporate Relations, and I’ll have an opportunity to rework the entire corporate relations program at the new association and build a team under me over time.

Part of the reason that things have been so insane for me lately is because I’ve been interviewing a lot, and then super busy at my current job as I try to wrap things up before heading out the door! I will be back to DC next Monday night, then back in my office Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then I am done! It’s so crazy to think about the change after you’ve headed to the same place every weekday morning for years, but even though I am nervous about it, I truly am more excited than anything.