It’s here. It’s the day I (Nicole) say goodbye to Nevada, to Reno, and to Southgate Coins. For almost a year now, I’ve been preparing for my big move to Texas, months have flown by so quickly, with such an overwhelming whirlwind of emotions, I’ve hardly had anytime to stop and catch my breath until now.
The last several weeks I’ve heard many terms in reference to me leaving my hometown. “Bitter-sweet,” “Leaving the comfort zone,” “Next chapter of my life,” “Exciting change” ... all true, but now all a little too real. Now that it’s “goodbye” time, my only real emotion I know of for sure is “heartsick.” It’s heartbreaking to leave behind those who have been such a huge part of my life for so long. If any of you don’t already know, I’ve been employed at Southgate Coins for over four and a half years, and I can say without any hesitation that store owners Rusty and Marie, and co-worker Maya, have become closer to me than most have in my entire life. They know me better than most of my best friends, whether it’s my silly quirks, when I’m not feeling or being myself, or how I’m going to react to a situation.
We hear the phrase, “You never know what you have until it’s gone,” all the time, but it couldn’t be more truer than now. Marie, Rusty, and Southgate have given me more than I think I can ever realize in this lifetime or next. And I may need several lives just to thank them enough for all they have done for me. It didn’t matter if it was family issues, boyfriend issues, work issues, or anything else issues (girls my age have lots of “issues”), their support and love never faltered. Both go so out of their way to make a person they care about feel a part of their family, and I’ve been very blessed to be apart of it for as long as I have.
Rusty. Whether it’s learning valuable life lessons of not drinking too much pink lemonade before dinner, talking about sports and local favorite Colin Kaepernick, our endearing “fist pounds” to every meaningful success we encountered together, or convincing me to wear the color yellow, you hold a very special place in my heart. By far the hardest worker I’ll ever meet in my life, I get exhausted just watching you do all the things you do. But what many don’t get the chance to see is your extremely tender side. From my first day working at Southgate, it was always your truly genuine, gentle, and encouraging smile that could make everything better. Apocalypse and all. Thank you for always challenging me to do and be my best, and chuckling when you had to constantly remind me for the last four years, that I probably shouldn’t refer to you as “MY owner” to customers, and that we didn’t want the customers to be under the wrong mid-1800s impression, haha.
Marie. The mamma bear of Southgate. You are the glue that holds everything and everyone together. You as well, have this genuine and intoxicating personality, with a humor that many times I don’t expect. You are a true friend, always interested in my well-being, how things are outside of work, and proud of the things I accomplish. Very few people in my life have ever been so supportive and caring, for me to feel like no matter what happened, and what went wrong, I knew I could count on you to be there, helping me back up on my feet with a gentle push. I will truly miss laughing and having long conversations with you, our inside jokes, and our little “passive aggressive” tendencies that we get such a kick out of. (I’ll never forget us putting “ugly” postage stamps on mail addressed to those we didn’t like or on bills ... obviously only the special recipients deserved a “pretty” stamp.)
Miss Maya. I’ve told you a million times and I’ll tell you a million more; I’ve always been blown away by your finesse. I truly look up to you. I don’t know how many hours, if not days and weeks, you’ve had to suffer listening to me vent about my problems for the last four and a half years, but you were always able to offer me the tough advice, and the “wet-my-pants” laughs, I needed. Simply put, you are irreplaceable to me, and I don’t think I’ll ever encounter another manager or co-worker like you that I share such a special bond with. (Or a manager I can affectionately nickname various profanities, without getting offended and knowing it’s all with love.)
I could go on much longer about how much Rusty, Marie, Maya, and Southgate Coins mean to me but I think I have expressed my overall feelings. Although this may be goodbye from what we’ve known and grown to love for the last four and a half years, I will always cherish the friendship I’ve been blessed with in these three amazing individuals and will continue to hold each of them very close to my heart for the rest of my life.
Goodbye my sweet Nevada,
Nicole