About five years ago or so, I began writing. I had been recently married and my wife wasn't much of a fan of sports in general or baseball in particular and she couldn't care less about the Tigers. In dire need of an outlet, I found the online community at Bless You Boys and eventually decided I had more to say than would fit in the comments section. That was how the original version of this little corner of the internet was started: as a Tigers baseball blog.
There have been many highs and lows along the way, but I am forever grateful that things began the way they did for me. Valerie is a much bigger fan of the Tigers now and we watch games together all the time. She even pretends to care about some of the issues with the team that I cannot help but to rail about. Sometimes, anyway. My writing has jumped around from network to network and from site to site, but I've been writing, pretty much non-stop, since 2008.
This afternoon, I had a second interview with the Van Wert Times Bulletin for the vacant Sports Editor position. Instead of an actual interview, however, the first thing the guy said to me was "Well, what do you think?" My reply was simply to ask how soon he needed me. Just like that, I was given the job.
I never went to Journalism school. I attended college, but didn't finish a degree. I have never written for a newspaper and until my initial interview with the Times Bulletin, I had never even stepped foot inside a newsroom of any kind. I have never even covered a live sporting event as media.
But, thanks to my work online, I am now the Sports Editor at an AP award-winning newspaper. My hobby, that I have devoted far too much time to and gotten far too little pay for, has now become my career. And for the first time in 14 months, I have a career.
I will only recount the past year or so in order to better appreciate where I am today. I was fired by the car dealership I worked for. It was a crap job and I really didn't like it at all, but it was income. I continued writing for the network I have been with for four years or so, in hopes that it would lead to a full-time position with the company. That looked like a sure thing until they no longer saw the value of my role. That was just a couple of months ago. Earlier this Summer, I was finally called in for a final interview at P&G, only to learn that I didn't get that job, either. Oh, and our rental property has been a headache the whole time.
During all of this, Valerie has carried the load, working 50+ hour weeks at a hog farm while I have spent my days with the kids and the housework. It has often times been trying and sometimes miserable, but I couldn't be happier that I've had the opportunity to spend so much time getting to know them and helping them be the little people they are becoming. Most fathers don't get that chance and I know it has enriched my life in ways I cannot express. For that, I am eternally grateful to those folks at the dealership who saw fit to relieve me of duties.
I have a big family and we have scraped by on very little income for quite a while now. Along the way, I think we've learned that maybe everything really does happen for a reason. Maybe you really do have to go through Hell to get to Heaven. And maybe things do have a way of evening out.
It's been a long time since we had a winning streak, but the tide is turning here at La Maison Parent.
It looks like the rental property is finally going away and hopefully will be out of Valerie's name. I have secured an actual big kid job doing something I love, and while it doesn't pay a ton, it will be a much better income than I've had in quite a while, and Valerie and I have probably never been happier.
It will be an adjustment, this new working outside of the home thing, and hopefully we can make the best of it. There are good things ahead for our family and I am so thankful to be able to say that.
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