Liberation or depression?

It's 3rd April today and I leave the trumpet news editing job on the 11th April, which sounds to me like somewhere around eight days.

I should have seen this coming but of course I am now finding that aspects of my going are perhaps a little upsetting for me, rather than representing unalloyed joy. Now the fundamental truth is still that it's time to move on, that I've done five years, which is enough, and that something I loved doing was starting to feel like a bit of a struggle, and so on. This is all indisputable. But, surprise surprise, there's also a bit of sadness and I need to address this too.

As noted, it's getting quite close. Things are hotting up and emails about the editor-change are flying thick and fast. I've done some work trying to make it a good handover but I need to do more (ah yes, Dr Guilt, welcome on board, thank you so much) and I really would regard it as a great victory to have passed it on in good shape and with (reasonably) happy successors.

Also, we've now posted (a few days back, in fact) on the news page the stories about the change. This makes it seem much more real although Gary's exceedingly and embarrassingly kind comments about me are clearly the result of some kind of delusion from which he suffers. Or maybe he actually told the truth and said "fat incompetent wino" and then I "accidentally" edited in the nice stuff in an excess of drunken vanity, who knows? But although at first I thought no-one had noticed, I've now started getting emails from people, story submitters, whom I know (not the Board, they've known for months) and they're upsettingly and undeservedly nice, and give me some wobbly moments.

Still, I get a chunk of my life back, and I keep in touch with some very dear friends and keep doing nice Guild stuff, and this is very very positive. I just need to keep my eye on that a little. Onwards and upwards!!

(I do have more stuff to blog about one day but I am struggling to juggle, even very badly, my current commitments. Have you seen me trying to juggle? Not good. So ... watch this space, but please do not hold your breath. And watch out for falling objects.)