Former love.

There was a time when I loved journalism more than anything.

Give me breaking news, a website update, some photography and a few bitchy phone calls wherein people tell me I'm going to hell, and that's my idea of a good day.

My life has changed a lot since those journalism days. Now, I get off at 5 p.m., I hang out with friends, I don't attend school board meetings until 10 p.m. and write stories until midnight, and I don't have to write stories about fatal car crashes, freak accidents that kill people, murders, and so on.

I do, however, still love journalism, and sometimes I freelance.

I've gotten comfortable with my non-journalism life. Quite comfortable, actually. When my car decided to throw a temper tantrum in January, I had money to fix it. Journalism does not provide that money. It barely provides much of anything, really, except an adrenaline rush that is pretty much the best feeling in the world and awesome badass reporters who become your friends.

Okay, there are pros and cons, I suppose.

In the middle of my freelancing, I'm reminded why I love the profession and why I left it.

I'm on a deadline this week and my phone is dead silent. Like, I'm hearing crickets silence.

This only confirms the fact that I still love journalism, but it's not the thing I love most in the world anymore. I love going home at 5 p.m., I love not being called at odd times of the day to cover something, and I love hanging out with my family (of the baby variety).

This journalism stuff sucks sometimes. I'll be happier when this story is done, I'm paid, and my life returns to normal.

I don't know why I do this to myself.

Side story time! Part of the guilt journalism induces on me is this: When I'm assigned a story, there's a vision in my head of how the story will turn out.

I learned this a long time ago as a journalist, but I've apparently forgotten about it since then. The story you plan out in advance is never the story you end up writing.

That's life, though. You can plan something out until you're blue in the face, but something will pop up and your plans will change.

It will happen. It always does.

I freak out every single time this happens. Oh my God this is the end of the world andthisstorywillneverevergetfinished!

And then I calm down and think, 'Oh...I can't exactly get fired for this, since it's not my full time job.'

And then I relax and realize...I like doing this. Despite the dead-silent cell phone, the stress, and the moments I want to pull my hair out, I realize that it's cool that people still think I'm good enough at this and ask for my help.

Also, it's not as bad as freelancing during a snowpocalyse, during which NO ONE IS IN THEIR OFFICE BECAUSE IT SNOWED A FEW INCHES.

Now, if I can only make the story I'm writing as long as this blog post. Ahem.