Recently, I had a conversation with a working journalist. He pointed out I technically wasn’t a journalist any more – I’d left the daily newspaper business to start a career as a teacher.
I was speechless because, career-wise, I thought of myself as a journalist and a teacher.
I read news stories with a critical eye – did the journalist report the story in an unbiased way? I subconsciously look at the lead – was it interesting, balanced, eye-catching? I see incredible people around me and think they’d make a great feature story.
If you love what you do, that career becomes part of your life. One of the professions that stays forever is education. When teachers retire or leave the field, the educator mindset remains.
Many retired teachers, or even those who’ve left the profession, step in to teach if the opportunity presents itself. The enthusiasm and love of teaching is reignited.
Engineers are always going to be engineers. They have specific ways of doing things that are ingrained in their DNA. My husband’s an engineer, and he solves problems logically and efficiently.
Parenting is one of those careers you never leave. Even when your kids are adults, the urge to mommy is strong.
If one of my sons says he feels sick, the first thing I do is put my hand on his forehead to see if he has fever.
I’ve learned to let their wives take the lead, but it’s difficult to resist the urge to tell them to lie down on the couch and I’ll be right in with chicken-noodle soup.
My brother is a web developer. But he’s a gifted artist who has the ability to draw or sketch anything. We all love it when Jeff shares his doodles from staff meetings.
Mine are usually squares, lines or circles. His are portraits or poses of hands or faces showing different emotions and stages of life. He can’t stop being a talented artist – it’s part of who he is.
Musicians are the same. The people I know who taught music, played an instrument or sang on the stage will always dissect a musical piece.
They’ll either play the score in their heads, sing the songs or break down the artist’s method of creating beautiful sounds.
Just because they’re no longer strumming an electric guitar in somebody’s garage or in the high school choir doesn’t mean they stop being musicians.
Retired geologists will always search for interesting rocks, and theater directors will read a play or novel and wonder how they can block and stage the action.
If we love what we do, the career becomes part of us, second nature. Realistically, writing a column for a newspaper doesn’t mean I’m a journalist. It means I’m a writer.
But in my heart, there’s a lot of chambers – journalist, writer, mom, photographer, seamstress, grandmother, sister, cousin, wife, daughter, grandmother, neighbor, traveler, secretary, concession stand worker, babysitter, chauffeur, friend.
If we’re lucky, what we do in life becomes part of who we are.
Working as a secretary taught me to embrace new technology.
Being a mom taught me love is unconditional. Patience is not.
Being a columnist taught me to look for lessons in little events, in people and in what’s around me.
A career as a teacher taught me we learn in different ways and at different speeds. If a child is reluctant to learn, look beyond the obvious. I learned to do that as a journalist.
I’m glad that trait is part of my soul.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.