So This Is Farewell…

September 1, 2021. 6:00pm

I know this won’t get posted until tomorrow evening. But tonight I did something I’ve been leaning towards for months. Nearly a year actually (with various degrees of “just make the jump” to “stay and try to make things work”. And frankly, the past month or so has just confirmed this is what’s best for me. This evening, I wrote a letter, and tomorrow is the beginning of the end. And, soon after that, the start of something new.

Tomorrow (the day this post goes live) I will be handing my employer my notice of resignation. So by the time this post goes live, the management will be aware. I’ve been there 7 years. Actually it’s been 7 years, 7 months if that matters. And I’m feeling some feels – bittersweet seems appropriate I guess, but even that word seems too small to accurately reflect my emotional state right now. It’s a positive change, but it doesn’t come easily.

I’ve learned a lot of leadership skills, managing people (to a small degree), and built up my department from haphazard to organized. I’ve trained so many people, and had to learn on the fly the best way to train them. So I started to learn how to read people. I’ve seen people go from incredibly shy and timid, to outgoing and confident. I’ve seen people go on to manage a store for a national cell phone provider. I’ve seen people go on to launch their own small business. I’ve seen coworkers battle significant illnesses. I’ve seen the store grow, change, and evolve. I’ve seen management and supervisors change, and the leadership evolve too.

I must make something clear, because to not say it wouldn’t paint the whole story. The store was a source of stability for me through 3 fairly significant personal crisis events and I’m sure there were times they questioned if I was worth keeping on staff or not. The reality is that I don’t know where I’d be at if I didn’t have the people and routine to bring some sense of normalcy to my life during times when everything else was in chaos. And I will always be grateful to them for that. Keeping me on staff while grinding through a divorce, and later, a mental breakdown was – no doubt – challenging to say the least. There were many days I wasn’t myself, and definitely wasn’t performing my duties well. I am thankful for their patience and grace while I sorted through these events.

However, the time has come to move on. For several months I’ve been feeling constrained and “boxed in” and looking for a change. And earlier this summer, an opportunity came up that I’ll be pursuing. Details on that will come later (if I remember!) but it will be a pivot into a new direction. At this point, I’m not entirely sure how it’ll impact my side hustle (involutionphotography.com) but I’ll figure that out and make it work somehow too. And there will be other changes too – frankly I’m sure I’m oblivious to some of them. However, the time has come to make my move. The longer I overthink and hesitate over the endless “what if” game, the more indecisive and doubtful I am. Or more accurately, I was. I’ve made up my mind now. And while I have no doubt there will be challenges ahead, my future is no longer with TimberFalls

No doubt I’ll miss it. I’ll miss my coworkers, and my regular customers. I’ll miss training people – watching their eyes light up and their back straighten when it starts to “click”. I’ll miss watching staff grow and learn and then go on to more success elsewhere. I’ll miss good conversations that get deep quickly, and out of the blue. And other aspects too I’m sure.

But as the song says, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”. So it’s time to write the end of this chapter, and see where the next chapter takes me.

Much love, as always

Phoenix