Well, I have read some emails, perused the latest headlines about the threat of a government shutdown, checked to see that Rafael Nadal made it through to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.

I have eaten lunch, so long ago in fact that it is nearly time to start thinking about dinner. I have popped in a couple squares of peppermint gum and, for probably the fifth or sixth time, watched the sweet Facebook video of Cookie, the mother dog rescued by the kind folks from Fayetteville Animal Protection Society just before she gave birth to five puppies.

I'm thinking about heading to the break room for a cup of coffee, but after that only one thing will remain.

I will have to start writing.

As I have just about every single week, I have put off writing for as long as I could.

In my 35-year career with The Fayetteville Observer, writing has rarely come easy to me. During my 11 years as a sports writer, the drama unfolding before me in the form of a buzzer-beater, a winning putt or a touchdown pass usually provided the impetus for an obvious lead paragraph, so that made writing a bit easier. And besides, the likes of Howard Ward, Thomas Pope, Earl Vaughan Jr., Sonny Jones and Bill Kirby Jr. were waiting back at the office for my frantic attempts at making deadline.

When I left sports to become a columnist 24 years ago, I wrote to a couple of the coaches who had been particularly kind to me.

“Being a columnist,’’ the late University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith wrote back in a note I will always treasure, “will allow you to write about things that are really important in helping society.’’

At the time, I figured he may have been referring to things such as policy decisions, legislatures, social issues, controversies. I was pretty sure I was far from qualified to weigh in on those topics. All these years later, I still feel that way.

But the truth is, I need not have worried. All of you in this community have provided all the inspiration I have ever needed. Oh, the characters I have met, the people I've been honored to try to capture in print.

Car dealer Don Price, seeing to it that veterans made it to Washington, D.C. to experience the World War II Memorial in person. Greg Kalevas, arriving here from Greece as a teenager speaking virtually no English but succeeding through determination and hard work.

Retired educator Ray Oxendine of Maxton, who made the cover of an American Red Cross catalog when he sang a tune to a frightened 5-year-old in the aftermath of a hurricane. Retired Gen. Dan McNeill after three decades bringing home the remains of his brother, Air Force Airman Clarence “Boone’’  McNeill, who was shot down during the Vietnam War.

Jan Faircloth Pugh, the mother and wife who told me she didn't believe in using the word battle when it comes to describing someone with cancer. And yet refuses to let that disease define her to this day.

And then there were those characters I turned to most often for inspiration: David, Courtney, Caroline, David Adams and Charlotte.

It took so long to write every column because all of you were worth the effort.

This week's column is particularly difficult because it is my last for The Fayetteville Observer. I am leaving to begin a new career as director of University Relations at Methodist University.

It is a move about which I am very excited, but this is a bittersweet moment nonetheless.

Very little remains, except to say good-bye.

And, even more than that, to say thank you.