A big change

A life-changing experience began unraveling when I became a mother working for myself a couple of years ago. The loss of the job I had held for nearly 16 years was a tremendous blow, but there were far more important issues at hand. The income, meager as it was, had to be immediately replaced. What was more, it had to be something that could be done with our two little kids underfoot as we remained hard and fast to our decision to raise our children ourselves.

After a couple of weeks of applying for all the benefits I thought we might now qualify for and whining at my sisters for help with a resume — you'd think a writer could easily whip up her own resume but I was at a complete loss — I left the kids with their grandmother and a friend or two and hit the pavement.

I personally took resumes to every newspaper within a 45-minute driving radius and handed them to the editors themselves, and was pleased to know that my work and reputation preceded me. My very first stop yielded me a weekly feature assignment, and that did worlds to boost my flagging self-esteem. A few days later I got some more regular work, and I started interviewing and writing. Other than those initial visits to hand-deliver resumes at the newspaper offices, those kids of mine were right with me just like they had always been.

Several months and a couple of food service jobs later, I landed a third regular gig with the state paper, and that was just what I needed to let everything but the writing go.

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