The Firsts of Lasts

Growing up is about a lot of firsts. First job, first love, first house, and so many other things that make us feel more like adults. But there are also a lot of lasts that come with those firsts...last semester of college, last night at home before moving in to your own place, last day at that crappy job....

Some of them are sad, but a lot of them are reasons to celebrate. In many instances, we can't have those firsts without going through the lasts too. When we first moved up here so my husband could go to grad school, I was terrified. It was a long way from home, and a long way from family and friends. While the city we live in is beautiful and has so many opportunities, I'm still longing for the day when we can move closer to our hometown.

I've already had a few lasts in my job. Without revealing too much of what I do (because, ew, creeps) my job is essentially that of a college security guard. A lot of my co-workers are either undergrads who are looking to join the military or public safety, or retired people looking for a low stress job for some extra spending money. My position in life is sort of unique compared to all of the other people I am working with. Anyway, there are three areas that I can work in my job: sporting events, concert events, and the dreaded ResLife. Once basketball season ended, I didn't realize that I wouldn't be working another sporting event because I always assumed I would have to work football games until I delivered the baby in October. However, after talking with my husband and a few other people, I'm starting to think that being outside and on my feet from 6:00 am until whenever the game ended was not ideal and would probably send me into labor early. One area down.

I finished my last concert event yesterday morning (which was just three hours after my overnight shift I might add.) I'm a little sad not to be working this anymore, because it was a great opportunity to get paid for watching musicals and other performances. Unfortunately, the performance hall did not contact us about working events this month. I actually think they're trying to phase us out, since they recently installed automatic locks on all of the doors in the building (one of our jobs was to lock up after the patrons had gone home) and most of what else we do can be done by their usher program. So yesterday, I did my last walk-through of the performance hall. I thought I would be nostalgic, but really, I was too tired for that.

I still have a few weeks left of ResLife, just walking around the campus at night and making sure the doors are locked, but I'll be done with that on July 25th. While this job has been good to me, allowing a lot of flexibility in my work schedule and paying slightly better than minimum wage, I'm ready to leave this behind, because it means I'm one step closer to a lot of exciting firsts.