Wrapping Up

Well guys, this is it. Tomorrow is my last day working at my job. Let's back up a bit though, shall we?

The moment I turned 14 (the working age here in Ontario, Canada) I applied to the local library. Why? Well, it was almost my home away from home at that point (see "Books are to be bread." post 2 days ago). As hopeful as I was that my cheerful presence almost daily at the library for the past few years would help my very empty resumé shine (yes I just did use an accent on the word resumé, multilingual keyboards are actually helpful sometimes), I was unsuccessful in getting the job. I tried again the year afterwards, and fortunately made it through! But... 6 months or so later, I quit the job. More on that another time though.

At the time I saw it as a great misfortune, but I think I learned a good lesson from what happened. You see, the library wasn't the only one who called me back the second year. When I was 15, my music teacher talked to me about a pianist position at her local church. Having played piano for 8 years, as well as having played piano at my dad's church, I knew my way around the kind of music that I would play: I guess you could say my experience was "note"worthy. So I got that job at the same time as the library job. Different from the library job however, I kept at this one.

And here we are today. (as I write this sentence, it's 12:03 midnight, so yes, we're here on the last day I work at the church.)

Back near the beginning of grade 11 (when I had been working there for approximately a year) I was approached by the minister and was told that my "work" habits were very poor. To explain, my piano skills weren't dropping so much as my head was nodding during the service. I was tired from staying up all night doing homework (mmhm, homework, believe it... that had piled up throughout the week because of the thing we like to call procrastination... at least I didn't leave it until Sunday night) and I wasn't particularly religious either, so the sermon felt like a lullaby to me early Sunday mornings. I was also really disorganized with music, having to constantly ask for new copies because I couldn't find the old ones. The minister let me know that if I didn't pedal my way into top gear (for those of you who don't know, that was a piano joke... you know... the pedals? Ok, I'll stop) I'd be let go.

So I fixed those habits.

Here I am today. The church and I have been through some rough days (like when I forgot to tell them that I was in a different country for one Sunday... oops) and some sad days (when the music teacher that had introduced me to the church passed away...) as well as happy days (when my birthday fell on one of the Sundays and they all wished me a good one) as well as some inspirational days (when a prematurely born baby of one of the regulars who came to the church kept getting healthier and healthier and is now a very happy baby). It's a shame that I really only found myself spiritually a month or two before my time there was over.

But that's a story for another time.

I know I'm going to miss the church and all the people in it; it really was an amazing job experience and I know I wouldn't nearly had as much fun if my piano sheet music was replaced with a cashier and my piano was replaced with a spatula (do you want fries with that?), not to mention the spectacular pay (musicians do really well... wow). I'll miss everything about it.

This was your daily F.U.C.K. for Saturday, July 27th. Value each and every community and family you become part of; there will always be a point in time when you will have to say goodbyes. Even though social media has evolved to a point where we will probably never stay out of touch for too long, nothing compares to the times you spend together offline. Because at the end of the day, whether you're saying goodbye to your family, your school, or your workplace, you want to be able to pat yourself on the back and say to yourself, "Good job." As for myself, well, it's a tad more literal.