I'll Miss You, PV

“Do you ever sleep?”
“So, is it just you?”
“If you check your email, I’ll kick your butt!”
“If you bring your beeper, I’m throwing it out the window.”

The above quotes are just a few of the questions and threats I’ve fielded during the last year and a half as Perkiomen Valley Patch’s local editor. For the record, my butt and beeper have remained intact, I do get to sleep and I really couldn’t have made the site what it is without my freelancers, bloggers and community tipsters.

What can I say? My time with Patch has been equal parts demanding and fulfilling, exhausting and exhilarating.

It’s a job that’s tough to “turn off.”

It’s also a job that, I’m sad to say, I’ll be leaving at the end of this week.

As of 6 p.m. Friday, June 1, I’ll no longer have editor permissions to update the site. Monday, June 4, I’ll start a new professional chapter as the editor-in-chief of The Reporter in Lansdale.

I’m excited to embrace this challenge, meet my new co-workers and get better acquainted with the people and places in and around Lansdale. However, it wasn’t an easy decision; my “Patchers” and the Perkiomen Valley people and places have become very important to me.

I’ve stood for hours in the cold and the heat for breaking news. I’ve sat through nail-bitingly tense budget meetings. I’ve spoken to grieving parents, siblings and friends as Patch has covered tear-soaked memorial events. I’ve been moved by acts of generosity. I’ve smiled during the joyous, celebratory events. I’ve marveled at the pastoral landscapes that are still a part of our community. I’d apologize for gushing, but I’m not in the least bit sorry. It’s tough for me not to have fallen in love with this place and the amazing people I’ve met along the way.

My passion for this community has helped me power through the challenging times, feel disappointed in myself when I know I could have done more or better, and is the biggest reason why it’s so tough to say goodbye.

I know PV will keep rocking, and the site’s new LE (whoever he or she will be) will be kicking around our (six!) towns to chronicle it all.

Massive thanks and hugs to my family, friends, Patch partners Melissa, David, Kyle, James, Leann, Gerry, Tony, Mischa, Kevin, Teresa and Sarah and Keith, and to you, my Patch readers.

It will be weird when I power down the laptop for the final time as the PV Patch local editor, but my memories of this time in my life will be impossible to “turn off.”