I’ve decided to do something that may sound unwise. Those who know me would probably shrug and say, “It’s a day ending in ‘y,’ Andrea. What else is new?”
To which I’d reply, “But I really mean it this time.”
Granted, this still is not an uncommon refrain.
I have a busy brain.
Some of my passing fancies include photographer. I actually circled back to that one and it kind of stuck. Writer—I circled back to that one a couple of times too. Maybe this is a thing.
For a hot minute I considered law. Too much fine print, not enough “I WANT THE TRUTH!”
Pilot? Waaay too much math.
English as a Second Language teacher in South Korea. South Korea was simply too far away for this homebody.
Painted rock artisan. I underestimated the obstacle of not, in fact, being able to paint.
Creative Memories scrapbooker. Pricey and, as it turns out, not actually my jam.
Book blogger. Another case of getting warmer. Looking back at my reviews, I seemed far less interested in discussing the books than in using them as a springboard to talk about everything else.
Fun runner. Too much running, not enough fun.
This would all be well and good—or perhaps just compelling evidence supporting my self-diagnosis of rampant ADHD. Emphasis on the AD. The HD isn’t really much of a thing anymore, but if you knew me as a kid you’d remember gravity had a difficult time keeping me in line.
Except three years ago, my main squeeze, my ride-or-die, well… died.
I’m not referring to a person. I’m not a monster.
I’m referring to a company.
One that very inconveniently gave up the ghost 448 days before our thirtieth anniversary.
I’d like to think it was a happy union. Well, until the things that eventually catch up with us all got involved: changing environments and questionable decisions.
I was as distraught as a widow whose husband suddenly suffered a fatal heart attack while away on business.
Then came the autopsy.
Turns out it wasn’t business. He’d been carrying on with a lady of the night named Tawny Starr and had bet the farm on the ponies.
After a short mourning period filled with self-recrimination and flagellation, I promptly entered into another relationship with all the optimism of Elizabeth Taylor approaching husband number five.
Or husband number six.
The point is, I remained surprisingly committed to the institution.
I am the last of a dying breed. You know the type. We’ve heard stories about them. Seen documentaries. Occasionally spotted one in a grainy black-and-white film.
Those strange creatures who joined a company, learned everything humanly possible, and then retired an improbable number of decades later with a gold watch and a pension.
It was the natural order of things.
What I didn’t realize was that my good intentions had, of course, paved the road to hell.
Or at least to six months spent questioning every decision I’d ever made.
The husband, kids, and dog decisions seem reasonably sound today, so that’s something.
However, I may have found a way to untie the Gordian knot that is “What do I do now?”
Just imagine Samuel L. Jackson narrating for colour, with the liberal application of MF wherever appropriate and several places where it absolutely isn’t.
Or maybe I’ve simply gotten a good grip on it with my teeth and am worrying it the way Sunny attacks a tug toy. Imagine a great deal of growling, some trash talk—Sunny is a surprisingly vocal opponent—and the occasional shriek from an innocent bystander.
Either way, I think I’ve made progress.
For months I’ve been trying to decide what I should write about, where I should publish it, which ideas deserve my attention, and which should be abandoned before they become yet another entry on the ever-growing list of Andrea’s Brief but Passionate Affairs.
Figuratively, not literally.
This is how rumours get started.
Then it occurred to me that perhaps the problem isn’t a lack of direction.
Perhaps the problem is assuming there should only be one thing.
After all, history suggests I have never been particularly good at that.
What was supposed to be a crochet empire overlooked one small problem: I am a ridiculously slow crafter with a well-documented susceptibility to distraction.
In a move not unlike justifying a purse you absolutely do not need, I started writing.
At first, the posts weren’t unlike my blog entries circa 2013—nominally about crafting but prone to wandering off on lengthy tangents.
Then, not unlike SNL’s Phillip the Hyper-Hypo after a candy bar, every topic imaginable exploded into fruition, eventually taking the form of something resembling an essay, for lack of a better descriptor.
History had already answered the question of what I should write about.
Apparently the answer was anything and everything.
The real question was where to put it.
Turns out you can take the girl away from the newspaper, but you can’t take the newspaper away from the girl.
I didn’t need fewer interests.
I needed a publication.
A place where hockey could sit beside history. Where transportation planning could coexist with Stephen King. Where serial killers, Labrador retrievers, books, media, culture, and the occasional existential crisis could all occupy the same real estate without requiring anyone’s permission.
The Intellectual Peacock isn’t a writer’s pseudonym.
It wasn’t a premature retirement vanity piece.
It wasn’t even a particularly well-thought-out plan. That would assume any of this was preplanned.
It was simply the first possibility large enough to hold all of it.
Turns out I wasn’t looking for a new career.
I was looking for my own newspaper.