Five-minute Thursday: belong

To some extent, at one point or another in their life, everyone struggles to belong. For some it's easier than others. For me, I was so shy as a child and had a hard time overcoming it growing up. It didn't help that in my town, if you were either rich or athletic - or, if you were very blessed, both - you were easily accepted. Unfortunately, I was neither. Well, I could have been athletic, but I let my shyness get in the way and prevent me from doing things I secretly wanted to do. So as a child and then a teenager in school, I struggled to belong, to find my place. It happened eventually, once I stopped caring about things that just weren't worth it.

Moving to a new area would always bring up the same old issues for me - trying to find my place. In our last place, we lived there for 5 years and still knew no one, not even our next-door neighbors. We both worked full-time, until I had Alexander, so it was easy not to get out and meet people. After he was born, it was nearly impossible to get myself out and about. I tried, for his sake, and enrolled us in one Music Together class. That was big for me. We didn't make any lifelong friendships but it was a good experience.

Now, after 7 years here, I feel like I finally belong. Part of me will never stop pining my old town, where I grew up (and have since forgiven for the whole money/athletics thing), but otherwise, I feel like I belong in this town. I know people, my kids know people, and in spite of my shyness that still crops up every so often, I push past my hermitical tendencies and get out there with the people of the real world. I may still not want to belong to any club that would have me as a member, but even still, it's nice to belong.

Five minute Tuesday: lost

I've been looking for a job. Not in your typical pounding-the-pavement, trolling monster.com, reaching out to LinkedIn members every morning kind of way, but in more of a relaxed sort of "let's see what's out there" kind of search. In fact, search may be too strong a word to use in this case.

We have a lot that needs to be done on this house, but it's not even so much about money. I need a little direction in life. You don't often hear about the lull that takes place when you're a stay-at-home parent and the kids are in full-time school. You feel a little lost. There is a big flurry of life events that take place one after another for a while there - you get engaged, you get married, you get pregnant or adopt a child, there are milestone party celebrations of one kind or another all along the way. Then, for some years, you've got your hands full with babies and toddlers. And when that ends... you suddenly feel lost.

What to do? Well, look for a job, of course. Not so much a job as a career. No offense to those who do, but I'm not simply looking for a 9-5 (or 9-2, or whatever would fit in to the kids' school schedule) job to fill my time and bring in some cash. I have my degree, I have some experience and I want to use it to be a writer or an editor again. It's getting out there that's so terrifying. It's scary, but maybe I'll finally have some sense of direction.

Five minute Friday (in theory): release

When summer begins, most people, I think, tend to see it as a time of freedom. More freedom from schedules, as a release from the day-to-day drudgery when their summer vacation rolls around. I suppose if you're accustomed to working every day throughout the year and are anticipating easier summer days with reduced hours, maybe short Fridays, and a long vacation away, then summer is a form of release. For a stay-at-home mom, however, it is viewed quite differently. Freedom ends.

For people who relish in the challenge, in the daily adventures of life at home with kids, those who are excited for day trips, play dates, and time at the pool, this is fun. Some people even look forward to it. I, unfortunately, am not one of those people. As a type B personality, I'm quite content to hang out at home and, often, do nothing. I have to get myself motivated to get out there and do something. If I can check off 2 or 3 items that I've accomplished at the end of a week that involve getting out of the house then I consider it a successful week.

So, while summer may be a time of reduced freedom for me, I'm going to try and enjoy my time with the kids. I know these years are fleeting and one day I'll look back and wish we had had more summertime adventures. I'll do my best to make some fun memories for them (and for me). And then, in September, comes my release.

Five-minute whatever day: messenger

I had a hard time coming up with something for this one.

But a messenger is someone who delivers a message, or news, for someone... which inevitably makes me think of a paperboy (or person, or man) delivering the news. A courier. Which in more ways than one makes me think of my maiden voyage in the news business at the Courier-Post.

Until I started working at the CP, actually even after for a little while, I didn't care much about the news. I was only part time there, but once I made friends in the news and features departments and started getting writing assignments, suddenly I cared a lot about what was printed in the newspaper. I used to wait with baited breath each Friday morning to bring in that newspaper and flip right to the middle weekend section, TGIF, to see how my latest feature about the local car show or mini golf tournament appeared between its pages. An accompanying sigh of relief each time to find my name spelled right, an acceptable headline, and that my lede had not changed in the last hours between when I last saw it and it went to the printer.

I never wanted to be a journalist when I was in college, even though I was an English major. I was interested only in creative writing for my own purposes and hopefully, one day, for the entertainment of others. But that changed when I started working for the Courier Post. An opportunity fell into my lap, and that job led to a full-time reporting position at another local newspaper. I heard once that once the reporting bug gets into your system, it's hard to get it out. That's definitely true.