CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- I was a wild-haired and wild-eyed third-grader, my left arm in a cast from fingers to armpit, when my parents took me to an open house the newspaper was hosting.

Ever after that day, I don't recall wanting to work anywhere else.

When other girls my age were playing with dolls, I was trying to teach myself how to touch-type on a Remington manual that likely weighed more than me. I wrote my own newspapers, seldom burdened with facts (or subscribers).

I can't even recall what exactly it was about the newspaper that so thoroughly won me over the day of that open house. I wish I could.

But maybe it's a good thing I can't.

Since this coming Thursday will be my last day at Charleston Newspapers.

The past two weeks have been difficult and awkward. After more than 22 years, the newspaper building feels like home. I've never spent this many years anywhere. Not in the house I grew up in. Not in any other place that I've lived. It's been my one constant.

Which explains the vast amount of junk that's collected in my office.

The late, great Gazette humor columnist Terry Marchal was one of the first people I met when I came to the paper. He was sliding down the hallway in his socks, his gray-white hair crazily tousled, singing "Suddenly Seymour" from "Little Shop of Horrors."

I took it as a good sign.

The paper seemed a different place then. Happier. Warmer. Lively.

Back then, Bob Smith was the Gazette's publisher, and I was his assistant. Except assistants were still called secretaries then. If Bob decided to leave the office while I was away for a minute, he wouldn't write me a note. Instead, he'd leave some random item on my desk for me to find so I could guess where he went. It was usually something easy like a golf tee or a ball marker or a menu, or even a lid that smelled like Coppertone. My favorite, though, was when he left a surgical glove and a cough drop. He'd gone for a physical. ("Turn your head and cough.")

Although I've told this story before, I'm in a reminiscing mood, so bear with me.

For the first 10 years I worked at the paper, I told only one or two people that I liked to write. I was afraid I'd be laughed at -- afraid the secretary's dream of being like the reporters might seem sadly adorable -- so I kept it a secret until a news release about a writing contest was sent to the newsroom with my name listed as one of the winners. Rosalie Earle, then managing editor, saw the release and asked me about it.

Rosalie happened to be looking for someone, preferably a new mother, to write "Smell the Coffee" on alternating weeks with former Gazette reporter/columnist Greg Stone, who had young daughters, too. I'd just returned from maternity leave after having Celeste. Rosalie gave me a shot at the column. Thirteen years have passed since then, and even though I'm leaving, I'm going to continue writing my column. I was nicely surprised when both old bosses and new said it was OK.

It feels like a lifetime ago that I first walked the halls of the paper, getting reporters to sign my cast. And it seems impossible to think of someone else sitting at my desk, enjoying my windows, filling my drawers with junk of their own.

As sad as I am to be going, I'm excited to start something new. To meet new people and hear their stories and screw up their names. (I'm lousy with names.)

It's scary to go, but I think it's time to not limit myself by having achieved a third-grader's dream.

Reach Karin Fuller at karinful...@gmail.com.