It happened: I lost it yesterday.
I wasn’t in the newsroom 10 minutes before I started crying. I knew it would happen. I just didn’t know when or what would set it off.
But the tears flowed and flowed and flowed.
I managed to stop long enough to get a few things done before leaving to take my son and myself to the dentist.
Tears started again in the dentist chair, and when I went to pick up my daughter from preschool, and when we all went to the grocery store.
“Mommy, what’s wrong with you?” my 7-year-old son asked driving home from the store.
A song had set the tear ducts going again.
Me: “Mommy is going to be sad for a few weeks, honey. Mommy’s job is ending. My work is closing. I’m going to miss my friends and my job.”
Son: “Why?”
Me: “Because honey, lots of things are going bad in the economy and sometimes businesses have to close.”
Son: “So there won’t be any more newspapers?”
Daughter: “No more newspapers and no more money.”
And I thought my kids didn’t know what I did all day while they were at school. I was very, very wrong. Of course they know. They know because they’ve heard me do interviews at home. They’ve seen me type stories. They’ve been to the office and sat in my desk and met my co-workers and been handed newspaper after newspaper to look at all their lives.
It made me smile. It also helped me realize they are at an age where they are beginning to understand the value of a job - that it can satisfy both personal and financial goals.
I stopped crying.