Nine years ago, I was asked to write the restaurant features for the Standard Examiner and my ship had arrived.
Nearly seventeen years ago, I started my career as a writer working for the Davis Bureau, covering city council meetings and writing features about people who lived in Davis County who did interesting, newsworthy things. After a year or so, I moved to the main office where I wrote weekly business profiles. I was so happy when, after about two years of writing for the Davis Bureau and the Business section, I got my big break and was invited to write for the features editor -- Vanessa.
This was great for many reasons. The first was that writing features is what I always wanted to do. The second was that the features correspondent received generous compensation. I was a little bit spoiled. And, although I enjoyed covering art exhibits, events, concerts and plays -- I always wondered how the guy who wrote the restaurant features got so lucky.
Nine years ago, the luck shifted to me and I took over that gig. I truly enjoyed it. Restaurant owners are some of the nicest, hardest working people I have ever met. My stories were fun to write and they made people happy. It was fun to be in the know about all the new restaurants opening up as well as the oldies but goodies. It was interesting to discover the stories behind local eateries. And, without question I loved trying all the different food.
Plus, whether or not it really was cool to be the food writer, people thought it was cool. My kids thought it was cool. My identity became wrapped up in being the food writer.
The best of times were the years right after Brian was laid off from the Deseret News when Vanessa was still my editor and she enlisted him to take all of the photographs for all of my stories. We had good times discovering restaurants and the latest theater productions together. The pay was very good at that time, which went a long way toward easing the pain of the layoff.
As the story of life goes -- things changed. Pay was decreased. Expectations increased. The photo editor left the newspaper and Brian was no longer assigned to my stories. Vanessa was moved to a new department and after enjoying 14-years of working with her I found myself on a non-stop merry-go-round of adjusting to a new editor every few months.
If things had stayed the way they were, I would have been happy writing the restaurant features and food news forever. Instead it was taking me on quite an emotional roller coaster and I was wondering both if it was worth it and if it would ever get better again.
For months, I considered quitting and I had good reasons. But, my kids didn't want me to quit. My husband didn't want me to quit. And, every time I would think I had had it, I would meet another awesome restaurant owner. The intrinsic rewards of the job were very high.
About one year ago, the newspaper launched a monthly magazine called Wasatch View and Vanessa was put in charge. I wrote for the first two issues last April and May. Then I told Vanessa I had too much going on between home schooling two of my kids, starting my new job with Catholic CEO Healthcare Connection, babysitting and of course raising four kids. It seemed logical to let the magazine (which was brand new to me) go and keep the restaurant features.
Over the Christmas break I was very introspective. That led me to an epiphany last week that I had full control to end the drama and anxiety that the weekly restaurant feature was causing me under the new management. I was finally able to let go of being the restaurant writer.
I called Vanessa to let her know I would like to start writing for the magazine and she was excited. That made me excited. Then, I realized, I am back to the golden days where Brian and I can work on stories together for Vanessa. He is her favorite photographer and takes photos for the magazine instead of the newspaper these days. The other upside is that the magazine is under the jurisdiction of marketing not the newsroom (removing me completely from the workplace where all of the drama seems to happen).
It is very freeing to let go of something that has been so stressful. It feels amazing to not have to worry about meeting my deadline that I had every week of every month of every year for nine years. It is nice to have a little break from writing before I begin working on my first magazine story. Then, if I can find a way to say "no" to more than one story per month, it will be nice to have one project per issue that I can work on and enjoy writing again. Writing definitely feeds my soul.
It was a really big change for me! I didn't think I would ever want to quit writing the restaurant features. For my first magazine story this time around, I am interviewing the owners of two adorable local dress shops. Restaurants were great, but this is going to be really fun too.
Here's to letting go of all the things that no longer serve us in 2016.
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