Aging My Way
“Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.” – Lawrence Kasdan
I’ve been retired from being a newspaper journalist for 20 years now. It was a job I loved. I thrived under the stress of the interviewing, the research and writing against a daily deadline. Every day was a new learning experience – from writing about Father’s Day from the view of shelter dads to interviewing a former president at a busy airport.
I miss the excitement, and even the grind of that kind of life, which all began two years after I decided – without a doubt in my head – that I had to become a writer. That was a huge dream for someone who was a high school dropout.
As one of my efforts, I applied for a reporter’s position. I saw the job as an opportunity to hone my writing skills. Instead, I was hired as a darkroom flunky at the small Texas Gulf Coast newspaper to which I had applied — for the grand salary of $1,25 an hour.
Toward the goal of becoming a reporter, I started taking journalism classes at the local community college. Fortunately, due to luck and the resignation of two college-educated guys, I got my wish – and a 25-cent an hour raise.
The year was 1967, and I was ecstatic. What I experienced for the next four years, beginning as a green reporter with no experience of the real world, was at least the equivalent of a master’s degree, not just in journalism but in life. Those experiences, along with hard work and my clippings, took me through the rest of a successful journalism career that lasted for 37 years.
And beyond – when I retired from my journalism job, I didn’t retire from writing. A day in which I do not put pen to paper or fingers on a keyboard leaves me feeling short-changed and restless.
But the writing I did in earlier years was all about other people and things – as all true journalists should do. What I write today is all about me and how I feel about things. No longer a journalist, I’ve become an essayist writing about my view of the world – and myself.
The change wasn’t easy, nor safe, because as a personal essayist I expose myself to the world. The transformation began after I wrote the first draft of Travels with Maggie, a book about me and my dog RVing together across America. I was told by a group of writers, who critiqued my efforts before the book was published, that my writing lacked voice.
And they were right. I suddenly saw that I was still writing as a journalist. So, I rewrote the book, adding the voice of an old broad who was still learning and still had a zest for life.
And that’s how I continue to write today – almost every day. I can’t help myself. I think that the day I stop writing will be the day I stop breathing.
Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.
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