How to Say Goodbye

There's a really good song with this title. (How to Say Goodbye - Paul Tiernan)...

6 days left at Boys and Girls Club. It's a job I have held for 3 years. That's pretty much the longest I've been committed to anything besides baseball and abstaining from sex. It's been a ride where I have grown more than I could ever imagine. I learned life skills, management skills, working with youth, psychology, and most importantly I have matured during this time. By mature I mean that I am able to look at the big picture of things and find an adequate solution for a problem. Yes, my primary focus is to enjoy life right now, have as much fun as I can, but I will not do it at the expense of my responsibilities and work ethic. I'm not a kid anymore, but I want to enjoy my youth as much as I can before I start saying "I feel old." These are the best years of my life, and I'm going to capitalize on them. Tough choices are going to need to be made, but I feel that life would be too easy if you never had to make any tough choices. It builds character, just like my last 3 years at BGC have. Probably the most profound memory I will ever have working there was the day I came in with a hangover and ended up pulling off an awesome day being in charge. Not only that, but I worked an extra 3 hour shift after my normal day. What I learned from that experience was that if you're going to party hard, you better be prepared to work just as hard or you're going to have to find yourself a new job. It wasn't easy, but I rose to the challenge, solved the problem, and am now better for it.

I'm going to definitely miss the kids and staff from BGC. I have worked with some awesome people over the years, and for some of them I even broke my rule about not hanging out outside of work or adding each other on myspace/facebook/etc. I grew close enough to these people to say that I consider them friends. People like Justine, Lam, Charles, Alyssa, and even Josh. I definitely won't forget them. I have also been blessed to meet some of the most interesting kids that I hopefully will have had as much of an impact on them as they did on me. The ones that stand out are Juan, Andres, Alvaro, BJ, Jimmy, Moises, Adrian, Joseph, Santana, Martin, Nathan, Victoria, Jean, Dianita, Dentay, Saul, and Heavy D. These kids are the future, and I have high hopes for the future. They made every day hard work, but they also made it one of the best experiences of my life, and I will never forget them.

BGC, you're grand finale is 6 days away. I wonder if you're going to miss me as much as I'm going to miss you, but I know that the lifespan of a former staff member in one's mind doesn't last very long (a lot of the kids barely remember Lam, who at one point was one of their favorite staff). I'd like to think I have a lasting impact, but I know I should just be grateful for my past and anything in the future is just a bonus. I've had the best job I could ever think of, let's hope the next one is even better.

...And the song ends like this:

"To get up and go

To catch the last train

To get in some car

And drive out again

To never come back this way....

And have to say....

goodbye."