Beginnings

his soon-to-be new room, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Sometimes it's so hard to see potential.

I walk through this house we now own, a place we will soon live, and all I see is floors that don't meet walls by a long shot or wires that snake out of control. I see curvy floors, realizing a marble dropped in the kitchen will likely roll to side door if it's tragectory isn't impeded by a raised nail or some other bit of detritus.

I close my eyes and hope for the best.

"Everything always works out," I tell myself ... "even when it doesn't work out the way you'd like."

I wrote recently of my beginnings in journalism. I wrote of what it felt like to work for a community newspaper; what it felt like to be a part of something that was bigger than just the signature on my check. How humbled I was looking back.

I was jubulient in the memories of the work and the people and the time.

Well, today, a very nice woman phoned and asked me to talk about the time I spent at THAT particular newspaper. She was writing a story about the paper and ITS history; she wanted stories about what it was like. I imagined she wanted glowing memories of its near-fabled past owners.

I had none of that nostalgia for her.

My memories of the company were personal ... and not terribly pleasant.

They had laid me off. After I'd worked 12 to 14 hours a day for seven years. After I'd spend the early years of my 20-somethings writing about garbage tipping fees and school lunches. After I'd spent those years living on pasta to make the $1,000 a month (gross) stretch as far as it could.

I have no love for that paper anymore.

And I couldn't stop myself from telling her.

All I can do know, as I wait to see how my words are translated by her ear, is to close my eyes and hope for the best.