An hour or two more and then I'm done working at my current job. On the way to work this morning, I realized that this could quite possibly be the last day working a regular nine to five (rather 9:30 to 6:30, alright alright 10 to 6) job for the rest of my days.

I tried to recall other ending days--the last day of high school, the last day in a town before moving, the last day at my last job (not so long ago). But other than a memory of flinging all of my papers over my head on the last day of high school, white layers of paper covering the floors and curving up the walls of lockers, there's nothing tangible or significant, no emotional connection with any of those last days. The memory is of all the small things, the school, the town, the car and its decrepitness: the blankets in the back seat for when the heat didn't, the crooked way the radio was crammed into the console, the grimy odor that puffed through the air vents, a visible cloud. But not the last time I drove it.

Last days don't have the kind of significance you always anticipate. It never feels like so much of a permanent ending as it does the beginning of another routine. So, what I feel is excitement and anticipation to stop one thing and start another, more fluid than permanent, more beginning than ending.