The Town of Trumbull will always hold a special place in my heart.
Not for your typical reasons, but rather for a distinctive type of attachment — call it nostalgia, if you must — that can only derive from one’s work, duty, and responsibility.
For the last year, I’ve been covering this town’s political landscape, police and fire departments, school system, business developments, library events, community gatherings, and jul.
However, most of all, I’ve been building a relationship that lasts forever — at least in my mind — with its people.
Surely, memory of my presence in town will begin to fade in the weeks and months that follow this announcement, but I will never lose sight of Trumbull as a community and what it has meant to my life. It’s where I began my career as a newspaper and website editor and, for that, I’m forever appreciative.
I’ve learned a great deal since taking over The Times on July 9, 2015. Leaving my post almost exactly a year to that day, I walk away with a bevy of personal milestones and a treasure chest of lessons on how to communicate, write, brainstorm, collaborate, reflect, rest, organize, design, post, and interview that will serve me well at my next job as editor of The Ridgefield Press.
It feels good to be going back home — I graduated from Ridgefield High School in 2009 and started my career at The Press as a news reporter in March 2013 — but the process of saying goodbye (and hello) is as taxing as ever.
The reality is that this last month has been a revolving door of departures and arrivals for me. I moved out of my childhood home on June 13. This weekend, I finally end my month-long journey of couch-hopping and moved into a place of my own for the first time since college.
Newfound independence carries a dichromatic weight that’s best described as floating in outer space without gravity — you can’t help but miss the feeling of being grounded, despite the fact that nothing is holding you in place anymore and the possibilities are spectacularly endless.
As I get settled in over the next couple of days and weeks, I assuredly will continue to contemplate what I have been able to accomplish over the last year, primarily thanks to Trumbull’s dynamic pull, which has kept me grounded throughout my adaptation as a young professional.
Combing back through my first couple of editions as The Times’ editor earlier this week, I stumbled upon a feature based on my first interview with a new member of the International Institute of Connecticut's Board of Directors, Trumbull resident Alex Meyerovitch (which didn't run until August 2015).
A day after the archive search, I conducted my final interview and wrote my final profile piece on a man who hasn’t lived in town since the mid- 1970s. His name is Tony Horton, a 1976 graduate of Trumbull High School and the inventor of the commercial home exercise regimen P90X.
You’ll have to wait to check it out in print next week.
For now, let me just thank you for the readership. I’m sure the road has been littered with bumps along the way — I know it has for me, but your patience and dedication to this community and this publication has made it a fun ride.