I always thought I’d have one more career change in my life — kinda pictured me and hubby ferrying tourists to the Outer Banks in our very own catamaran, or something a little more exotic than sitting at computers, as we neared retirement.

What I never envisioned was owning my own clothing boutique (look for me in downtown Apex).

I leave my post as editor of The Cary News and Southwest Wake News with mixed emotions. This has been the best job — actually I’ve had three here. Sometimes it didn’t even feel like work. Knowing I may never work in the field again is a little sad. I recall first wanting to be a reporter when I was a senior in high school.

After nearly eight years at The Cary News, if you count my freelancing, I’ve got a lot of memories. So many stories, so many people. I learned so much every day.

I became the arts and entertainment reporter after two years of freelancing and jumped right in on my second day on the job. Big news broke on a Tuesday. The women’s pro soccer team Carolina Courage, based in Cary, was shutting down. That was in 2003, my re-introduction to deadline writing after several years away.

My kids thought I had a dream job. Reporting on local theater groups and reviewing concerts, I occasionally bought tickets for them to see the show too. When Clay Aiken came to Booth Amphitheatre, I wrote several stories about his super-loyal local “Claymate” fans as well as the ones who followed him from city to city. At a Cary concert, I met a group of Japanese girls who had flown a long way to see their idol perform. I never got to interview the Raleigh singer himself, but I did interview his mother, who worked in Cary, just a few blocks away from the old Cary News building.

My only two other brushes with fame also came on the job. I interviewed Emeril right after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. He was on a book tour and coming to Cary. He was very nice and told me about the destruction to his New Orleans restaurant. At the book signing, I bought a signed copy of his new cookbook for my mother, a Food Network fanatic.

His book signing was packed.

Last summer it was the Jonas Brothers. They stayed at the Umstead, and a couple days before their Raleigh concert, their PR people invited the media on a press tour. Seeing as I have a huge fan in my house (think teenager with wall-to-wall posters), how could I say no? I couldn’t help myself: “Can my daughter tag along?” I asked. Of course the answer was, “no.” So I had to sneak. There was no way I could break the news that Mom, not the No. 1 Jo Bro fan herself, would get to meet the by-now famous trio. So I got up and got dressed like any other day at work. We, the press, watched the brothers golf in Raleigh on perhaps the hottest day of the year before heading out to the venue for a peek backstage.

Just another day on the job. (And yes, she found out later that night.) There have been many more “regular” folks who have touched me during my reporting.

When I first started freelancing, I did a story about a blind man in Apex, Larry Lawrence, who made hammocks. I didn’t know until about 10 minutes into the interview that he was blind. What a remarkable story of someone who found a unique way to make a living despite his disability.

A few years later I met Anne Heath, a Cary nun who fostered newborns until they were able to go to their “forever” home. Here was a woman who had never had children because of her calling, but her nurturing instinct came out in a different, but highly valuable, way. Heath didn’t look like the kind of nun from my Catholic upbringing. She had street clothes on. I could tell she had a heart of gold, not only for babies but also for her adopted cat and dog.

I’ll never forget Marianne Burke. She called to tell us that the famous novelist Elizabeth Berg had penned a book loosely based on her story. In the span of two interviews, I learned that Marianne and her siblings had been raised by a mother paralyzed from the neck down by polio. Their mother, who had spent years in an iron lung, managed to raise three children, attend college and become a social worker. I learned a lot about the ravages of polio on an entire generation, and I met an amazing woman to boot. Just think about the extra things you would need to do if your mother was paralyzed from the neck down. Marianne recalled her childhood with such grace and candor. The book is called “We Are All Welcome Here.”

There were the Britt and Cooper murders. Myron Britt recently was sentenced to life without parole for the shooting death of his wife Nancy in 2003 as she answered the door at her sister’s house in Lumberton. Brad Cooper awaits trial for the murder of his wife Nancy, who was found murdered last summer not far from their Lochmere home.

Tragedy hits everywhere, including small idyllic towns like Cary.

Then there were the deer that foraged in Cary residents’ yards, destroying their hosta and other delicacies. We talked to neighbors who had been “hit,” as well as town officials and wildlife experts, but the one voice we forgot to include was that of the deer, which, as we know, have lost much of their habitat to a “paved paradise.” And we heard it from several animal lovers.

Animals are great story subjects. I wrote about Wicket, a smart little Lhasa Apso that saved his owners’ Cary home from burning to the ground. He ran into the street to attract the attention of a passing driver. I think he got a big T-bone steak for that one. An ostrich farm owner in Apex caused a stir when she feared her flock would freak out during a Progress Energy siren test. We were there on test day: Nada. But the debate generated a few interesting stories. Who knew there was an ostrich farm in Apex?

We do a lot of fundraiser stories. One I did recently will stick with me because of a boy named John Allen Atkins, who has spina bifida. When he and his mother answered the door, I had no idea he was the one I was supposed to interview because he wasn’t in a wheelchair like other affected children I had met. He was the sweetest, most upbeat, well-rounded boy. When I left, it started to pour. John Allen came with an umbrella to escort me to my car. That was his idea alone.

I could go on and on. I have had so much fun telling your stories. I have been amazed by some of them, humbled by others.

I’ll end with a little philosophy I try to live by, before saying goodbye. There is nothing more important than the way we treat other people — friends, family, strangers, interview subjects, readers. When we are gone, that’s how we’ll be remembered.

I hope I treated you well. If I ever fell short, I am sorry. Give me a call and we’ll have a beer. I’m taking Obama’s lead on that one.