End of an era at the Lawrence Journal-World.

My motto is: "Journalism will never love you back." But I can't remember a time when I didn't love news and newspapers. Still do. I love my hometown paper, the Lawrence Journal-World.

The journalists of the LJW will be moving out of their beautiful downtown space by the end of the month, opting for smaller digs in North Lawrence at an old outlet mall. I was on staff in 2001 when we moved into this office - which had previously been the city's post office.

So I'm kind of sad about the move. I worked at LJW from 2000-2007, got to be a reporter, an editor, and the paper's first blogger. We shared the digs with 6News, a local cable TV outlet. I learned how to be a TV reporter, too.

I had so much fun. I think part of it was being the right age - late 20s and early 30s - but some of it was that it was the last possible moment to be optimistic and hopeful about working for a newspaper, as opposed to grimly determined.

The Great Recession set in shortly after I left, and newspapers haven't been the same since.

The Journal-World has passed to corporate ownership. The staff is smaller. It no longer prints its own papers. Things are different. But the folks left behind are still working like hell to cover their community.

They're led by editor and publisher Chad Lawhorn, who takes his share of criticism and jokes in the community, but who has worked like hell himself to keep the paper covering important stories in the community. The city doesn't know how lucky it is to have him.

This is the point where it's tempting to mark the moment with the -30-, but the Journal-World isn't ending -- just its residence at a particular spot downtown. The journalists are still working like hell. The headlines seen here? They were produced in different locations.

So. A moment of sadness perhaps. Time to acknowledge that times change, that the industry has changed, and that you can't go home again.

It was a great place to work. But there's still work to be done. So I wish my friends and former colleagues the best of luck in their new digs. There's news to cover!

(Many thanks to the staff of the LJW for letting me visit one last time. Y'all are awesome.)