Can't sleep

I treasure days like today. I for the first time in a long time got several hours of just peace and quiet. Actually eight hours almost straight of me, music and time to think.

I didn't realize when I had kids that life would turn into constant white water, running from one appointment to another, finding babysitters, cleaning up toys, talking about poop way, way too much.

While I do tend to run around, joking, laughing and talking probably too much, I do like to take time every now and then and just think and analyze.

Recently I have been having this internal conflict. I am hurling toward the time when I will be able to go back to full time. Now, ignoring the fact that the newspaper industry has recently had some issues and I may never get another full time job, the bigger question is do I want to go back?

I am a competitive person, and I also love what I do. It's like a drug. But there is one part of what I do that I absolutely hate with every fiber of my being: death stories.

Just last week I got to see my co-worker at The Wilsonville Spokesman cover a funeral -- his third since I started in June of '08. He did great work, getting some pretty powerful pictures and writing a story about a poor family trying to deal with losing their son to a swimming accident.

It reminded me of just what it means to go full-time. To chase not just the fun City Hall story, the interesting feature or the latest political intrigue, but to cover the missing kids, the murdered wives, the teens that die in car crashes. Makes me pause.

Does that mean I have lost my edge?

Today, however, as I was driving in the car, going to cover some things I have never experienced before, and quite honestly wouldn't experience if it wasn't for my profession, it hit me. No matter what happens in the next 12 months, I get paid to write. I get paid to go to city meetings and make sense of them. I get paid to go on vacation and write about it. I get paid to have a great time at this moment in time.

You really can't beat that.

Now, if you will excuse me, I probably should get some sleep... :)

Pat