The end of an era

Today is my last day as a working journalist.

I've spent the last five-plus years as a reporter for The Star-Ledger, the best and largest paper in New Jersey. When I moved from Tennessee to New Jersey eight years ago, I had never heard of The Ledger, but I quickly learned that if I was going to continue to be a journalist in the Garden State, then The Ledger is where I needed to be. And since landing at The Ledger, I've worked with some of the most talented editors and reporters in the industry and for that, I'm eternally grateful.

But the news industry is just too unstable to warrant me staying. The owners offered buyouts  - one year's salary and benefits - and it was just too good to turn down. So, today, along with 30 other reporters, photographers and editors, is the end of an era. By the end of the year, 152 newsroom employees would have left The Ledger.

I wasn't sure how I would feel this morning and disappointingly, I felt nothing when my alarm clock went off at 9 a.m. (journalists are not 8-5 folks). I drove to work, walked into the office and still nothing. I wanted to be weepy, sorry, sad, something, but nothing. Even after my going-away lunch with my bureau and the larger going-away dinner with the other journalists who left today, still nothing.

I'm fearful that one morning in the near future I may wake in a panic with tears streaming down my face. For the last 11 years, 13 if you count my junior and senior years in college, I've defined myself as a reporter. I am no longer a reporter. My husband says I am a reporter - just an unemployed one - but still a reporter.

Some people say their job is not who they are, but what they do. But journalism was who I am. It's instilled in my bones, in my heart. 

I'm not sure where life is going to take me or where I will land, but I hope it's just as fulfilling as journalism.