Two weeks ago I achieved the impossible. Against the odds of a shaky economy and my own lamentable history as a job seeker, I managed to secure an offer for full-time, salaried employment.

I start my new job on Monday, March 7 - which also happens to be my 33rd birthday. I will be writing questions (or "items") for some of America's best-known standardized tests, including a certain scholastic assessment test that sends chills up the spines (and groans out the mouths) of teenagers and parents across the country. I was joking with a friend; all I need to do is marry a tax-auditor and together we'd be the most feared and groan-inducing couple in America. Badum tish.

Seriously, though, I'm looking forward to my new job. Most of the people I'll be working with were, like me, marginalized academics - adjuncts and non-tenured faculty who, also like me, had grown tired of hustling for a non-living wage. For the first time in my life I'll be working from 9 to 5, but I'll have my evenings and weekends to do with as I choose. Also for the first time in my life, I'll be financially independent - from my parents as well as a spouse. I'll have insurance, a 401(a) and 403(b), a salary in the mid-50s, and piece of mind. Goodbye 1556 - hello gorgeous!

As truly grateful as I am, I'm also giving myself permission to mourn. I'll miss my students. I won't miss grading their work or justifying my expectations during contentious office hours, but I'll miss their presence, their respect, and those occasional moments when I impact their sense of the world and their own agency within it.

I teach - taught - at a community college where so many students mask feelings of worthlessness and disempowerment behind wise-ass, dumbstruck, or apathetic faces. I live(d) for the moments when I crack(ed) the facade, sinking my fingers into the mush of my students' wounded self-esteem. I wanted - demanded - greater things from them, more shape and substance to their thoughts than this doughy ooze of complacency and indifference. Sometimes they showed up to the challenge. Eyes startled and brows scrunched, their faces took on the expression of a stroke patient attempting to regain the power of speech; to say, "I can do this. I can sculpt the mess of my own helplessness and disorder into something worth displaying, something more useful and of much greater consequence than the mask I've spent years, consciously and unconsciously, creating to disguise my insecurities."

Sometimes they became their own sculptors. More often they rejected my challenge or accepted it only superficially, toweling off their hands and masking themselves again the moment they discovered just how rigorous and exhausting the effort would be. Either way, I'll miss the struggle. Today I taught my last two classes. At the end of my second class - Introduction to Dramatic Writing - students came up to me and shook my hand, wishing me luck. During my 10 years as a teacher, I've made my fair share of students cry. This afternoon my students unknowingly turned the tables.

The sun setting on the college parking lot on my last day

My eyes welled up for more than just my students. As I made my way from the Liberal Arts building to the parking lot - the sun literally setting on my full-time adjuncting career - I thought of Ex, now my ex-partner in life as well as my ex-colleague at the college. I thought of what a triumph my new job would have been for us, putting an end to our financial worries and finally casting us as equals. Perhaps we would have bought a house, something my parents had advised us to do the moment I got a "real job." Perhaps we would have even begun to consider adopting a child - a decision that seemed unthinkable in the absence of a respectable, second income.

Today was by no means my final "goodbye" to the college. On Friday I'll be chaperoning the LGBT students' annual Mardi Gras dance, and I plan to continue teaching in the future, picking up a night class once I've settled into my new job. But this was, in a very real sense, my final "goodbye" to the years I'd invested in Ex and in making the college a safer, better place for him.

The moment I realized Ex's tenure was being threatened by homophobic administrators, I set to work doing everything I could to zap our little community college into the 21st century. This was no easy feat. Last year, the LGBT club staged a "kiss in" in the cafeteria to raise awareness of the queer student population. Campus security officers and cafeteria staff shoved participants, accusing them of behaving like animals; student onlookers threw food; the Dean of Student Affairs called me and several students into a meeting where she described the kiss-in as "completely inappropriate" and forbade us from ever staging another one. The editors of the student newspaper caught wind of this and reported on the whole, grotty affair. Their article appeared in print as well as online. A cast member of MTV's The Real World posted it on her Twitter feed, and soon coverage spread to local media and the college was being inundated with phone calls demanding the students' right to engage in peaceful demonstration. The story didn't exactly spread like wildfire, but it gained enough traction to put pressure on the college, as did the intervention of the ACLU, which issued a letter of demand informing the dean that she could not, in fact, legally outlaw a future kiss in.

For better and for worse, the administrators and certain staff members learned to conduct themselves with begrudging circumspection whenever LGBT issues were concerned. Their attitudes toward queer students and faculty may not have changed, but their appreciation of how their attitudes might be perceived by others certainly had. Around the same time as the kiss in, Ex was rehearsing his students in a production of Rent. The year before, he'd staged Angels in America only to be summoned for a sit-down with his dean, who expressed serious concerns about the "gay content" of the play. Rent opened two weeks after the ACLU called "checkmate" on the administration. If Ex's dean had any concerns, this time she kept them to herself.

I've never been prouder of a group of students than during the aftermath of the kiss in. The club officers stood their ground, speaking up for themselves in meetings stacked with administrators who would have cowed even some of our most seasoned faculty. Ex, in turn, had never been prouder of me. The students did most of the work, but I advised, assisted, and, really, donated most of my life to the cause for the better part of two months. He knew I was doing it, at least partly, for him. This was almost exactly a year ago - about 10 months prior to his breaking up with me because, he felt, we didn't have enough in common and would be happier with other people.

In bidding adieu to the college, I am leaving behind one of last vestiges of Ex and me, the "us" for whom I invested so much time while enjoying almost no formal recognition. As if to drive home this last point, the college hardly seems to have noticed my departure. Throughout the week, colleagues stopped me in the halls and congratulated me, sincerely and elatedly, on my new job. But there was no fanfare, no trumpets, no stash-a-supermarket-cake-in-the-mini-refrigerator-in-the-lounge and-surprise-the-departing-adjunct. After five years of adjucting, I knew better than to expect anything so elaborate. Still, I can't help but feel that my footprint in the sandy consciousness of the college is already being eroded.

As far as Ex is concerned, I wouldn't have wanted to see him even at a surprise send-off. I might have appreciated a card; I definitely would have appreciated his organizing a send-off, even if he were wise enough to know he couldn't attend.

He sent a short e-mail congratulating me. That was all.

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UPDATE: Friday night during the Mardi Gras dance, I got my grand send-off.

The students staged the dance in the college's blackbox theatre, transforming the space into the setting of a laser-lit, 1990s, "retro-style" rave. Two DJs spun (one techno and pop, the other house). The subwoofers sonic-boomed. The ravers puppeteered their glow sticks, painting neon figure eights amidst the magic lantern of colors and darkness.

Old fart that I am, I was about to slip away into the dressing room for some peace and quiet - or at least as much as I could expect with the music thudding next-door. But suddenly the music stopped, and the techno DJ, who was also my soon-to-be my former student, summoned the party-goers to the stage. One of the students in charge of the LGBT group took the microphone and began addressing the crowd. I heard my name. A moment later I was standing on stage as my soon-to-be-former LGBT advisees presented me with an embarrassment of riches: a hand-made, oversized card; a Barnes and Noble gift card; a bouquet of violets and daisies tied with five ribbons, one of each color of the rainbow; and an acrylic award engraved with my name, the date, the college logo, and a commendation for working tirelessly to make the college a more "fabulous" place.

The award is shaped like a cartoon-sized tear. As soon as it was placed in my hands, before my brain even had time to consciously register the shape, I held the award to my face, beneath my eye, and flashed a maudlin frown at the crowd. I was embarrassed, overwhelmed, devastated, and elated.

I lowered the big plastic tear and felt real ones threatening to take its place. The students standing closest to me could see I was starting to cry, but I excused myself to avoid balling in front of the 75 others. I made my way from the theatre to the front entrance of the building, passing other students here and there, my eyes getting redder and wetter. I did my best to stay composed until I pushed through the heavy glass doors and stepped into the night. Then I lit a cigarette, bundled my coat against the chill, and choked out a medley of small, embarrassed, overwhelmed, devastated, and elated sobs.