Nothing gold can stay

Way back in the 8th grade I had this really great teacher who's name is now escaping me, but she was awesome. One of our units was on poetry (this was an English class btw) and we read Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay. As an eighth grader this poem stuck with me and over the  many years since then has come to mean different things in my life. As  I plan for a big move in jobs this has come to mind yet again.

Frost writes nothing gold can stay. I have a similar feeling for the job I am leaving. I love this work I do for the a university in the scholarship program. I can see the impact a complete stranger has upon another's life. It's frustrating sure, but then again every job has individual frustrations. The shine of a new job wears off as the realizations of the day to day work settles in and as he remarks leaf subsides to leaf. I think- I know- this has happened with my job. But I still love it and in the end I will miss the people more. I work with some really incredible women who I love dearly. I've worked with them since I was a student starting back in 2007. Making the transition into a full time employee wasn't that hard because of having an established relationship and now that I'm moving on it is a truly bittersweet feeling knowing that nothing gold can stay.

The new job presents it's own set of challenges and will push me farther outside of my box than I've every really let myself go. I've lived in academica for years now, since 1999 when I first began college. I've only left for a a few short months before returning with a new focus and zeal, which has lasted six years and resulted in another undergraduate degree and in a few months a graduate degree. But academica was comfortable. I am good at hitting the books. I enjoy hitting the books. Hitting the books doesn't pay the bills and doesn't leave much room for anything else in life. So the books are coming to a close- for the first time in years I will only have one class and it's equal parts scary, exciting, unknown and daunting. 

I'm not good with change and this job brings new changes and challenges I haven't faced before. I'm excited for the work I will be doing. It is public service, where my degree lies, and will again help change lives. I'm trying hard to hold onto the last remaining gold leaves in this position I will soon vacate, but alas Eden quite often sinks to grief and though getting my projects completed will find me busy each day, the mental grief of wondering what would have become had I taken the job far outweighs my increased workload. Two weeks in the grand scheme of things quickly flies by us and in the end the decision, though difficult to make, was the right one. Maybe Frost had it right all along nothing gold can stay, but what is left in its wake is something just as beautiful and the dawning of tomorrow brings a new an interesting existence.

P.S. for those who have not read the poem it goes as follows:


Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.


Robert Frost