Whenever I teach journalism, I tell my students our profession is a relational, not a transactional one.

That is, we do not merely trade a few minutes of conversation and clipped quotes for clicks as often as possible. Rather, we create and further connections: between ourselves and our beats, between ourselves and our sources, between neighbors. Ultimately, between our community and its own stories.

So let me write to you as though we have a relationship, Columbia. Because we do.

Our relationship changed forever when I assumed the arts and culture beat at the Tribune in the summer of 2009, and it's a relationship that changes this week as I leave the paper.

I leave grateful and I leave tired. I leave believing I accomplished what I set out to, and I leave both fearful and faintly hope

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