5/52

When I was in the first grade, my teacher had all of us draw pictures of what we wanted to be when we grew up. Mine showed a stick figure me sitting at a big yellow desk with a piece of paper and a pen, a work in progress in front of me. At the bottom, I wrote, in my best six-year-old handwriting, “When I am grown, I will be a poet.” I also drew a giant trashcan, for even at six, I must have known there would be a lot of really bad first drafts.

I have always loved to write. I wrote poems and stories from the time I was very small and wrote and published a class newspaper with my first computer when I was in third grade.

Even so, my childhood aspirations were all over the map for awhile. In no particular order, I wanted to be: an archaeologist, a chemist, an astronomer, a newspaper editor, a radio announcer, a lemonade stand entrepreneur, a pediatrician, a gymnast, a psychologist, and, my personal favorite, the next teen pop singing sensation.

I was convinced I would be completely and totally awesome at anything on that list too because my parents told me so and everyone knows parents don’t lie!

It wasn’t until one day in ninth grade English class that I really started my journey back to the aspirations of my six-year-old self. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be listening to a discussion about Great Expectations, but as usual, I was daydreaming instead. My apologies to Mr. Charles Dickens. I just never found him very interesting.

My gaze wandered, and eventually stopped on an assignment the teacher had written on the board for her Journalism class. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I DO remember thinking, “I could do that!”

Perhaps realizing a singing career was not going to happen for me, I dumped choir for journalism the following year. I was instantly enamoured with the class and three days in, I made my mind up that by my senior year, I would be the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper.

I adored my teacher, a strict, very hard-to-please woman who was actually very kind, but also well-known for loud tirades when students were disrespectful or did sloppy work. She scared us all just a little; but her high standards are what drove me -- I was determined to win her over.

I will never forget when, one afternoon, toward the end of the school day when all the other students were talking and laughing in the few minutes before the bell rang, she pulled her chair up next to my desk and said quietly, “Erin, you are interesting. SO quiet.... but SUCH a talented writer.” She punctuated her comment with a smile. I don’t remember what my reply was, but I’m quite sure my face went from zero to crimson in half a second. Inside, I was beaming from ear to ear.

Two years later, I actually *did* succeed in becoming the co-editor-in-chief or our school paper, but only because my good friend Reggie, who was actually selected for the job, wanted someone by his side who knew how to work the computer layout program.

Just to give you an idea of what I was up against,you need to know that Reggie was one of THOSE people -- the kind you can't NOT like who was a star at everything he tried in life. After high school, he went on to Northwestern University’s Medell School of Journalism and has since worked for three or four different tv stations, including CNN as an on-air reporter. Yes. I think that sums it up nicely. I was happy just to ride his coat tails that last year of high school.

As for me? After high school, I actually started out at a college that didn’t even offer journalism as a major. That’s what I got for choosing a college based on the pretty pictures in the brochure. After the money ran out, I transferred to a better (read: CHEAPER) school with a well-known mass communications program.

My first official journalism class was Newswriting.

I will never forget Dr. Kim. He was an older professor, probably 70 or so, and reminded me a bit of Yoda, but without the calm, zen, Jedi side. He yelled for most of the three-hour class every week in a thick Korean accent, standing over us while we wrote headlines and leads flailing his arms and pointing and saying we needed to work faster and use less words. I am a stronger person for having survived that experience, but after that, I was pretty sure I did NOT want to be a news writer.

My last journalism class I ever took was Feature Writing, which is to say, human interest-type stuff. It was much more my speed, in fact, I got As on every assignment and my work was always being read to the class. I did so well that the professor, who was a columnist for a local paper, told me I should definitely pursue a career as a feature writer. I didn’t have the heart (or the guts) to tell him the only reason my stories were so good is because they were completely fabricated -- every last one of them down to the last quotation mark. because I absolutely HATED interviewing people.

It seems interviewing is, well, a bit of a necessary skill if you are planning on being a journalist of any kind.

I decided journalism was probably not for me after all.

I started taking advertising classes, which appealed to my creative side and didn’t require asking questions of perfect strangers. Having grown up around the advertising business (my father has been a jingle writer as long as I have been alive), I knew my way around and I turned out to be pretty good at coming up with slogans and taglines and clever campaign ideas for fake businesses. I even had a professor call me into her office for the sole purpose of telling me she thought I should consider being an advertising account executive. I laughed because I honestly used to choose my college classes based on which professors had reputations for assigning the least amount of oral presentations. Besides, who wants to be an account executive? All the fun jobs in advertising are in the creative department! (I blame television and movies for this misconception, by the way. "Crazy People", I'm looking at you!)

And me? I was funny! I was creative! I kept toys on my desk! I had studied and memorized the entire history of every influential ad campaign EVER. Clearly, I was BORN to work in advertising.

Right after college ended, the ink still wet on my diploma, I started an internship at a small agency near my home. I wrote one radio ad for a local car dealership that they thought was funny and that actually got produced -- also I knew how to spell and correctly use semicolons and the head copywriter needed an assistant. I was hired.

The first thing I did was bring in my Mr. Potato Head and Barrel of Monkeys to keep at my desk because you know, that’s what creative types do -- that, and spend their days playing ping pong and thinking outside of the box.

The disillusionment spiral began.

The reality was that I spent my days proofreading ads for home builders and packages for pretzels. I learned I am really a quite BAD proofreader, despite being able to spell and my fearlessness of semicolons.

The writing I got to do was rarely interesting or fun. I quickly learned that our clients, which at that time were an assortment of car dealers, home builders and hospitals, preferred their advertising firmly INSIDE the box.

The days were long and slow, the office politics relentless. And again, I was a REALLY bad proofreader, something which was constantly getting me into trouble. The things I most enjoyed about my job were not part of my actual job at all -- answering the phones when the receptionist went to lunch, archiving old radio spots and talking to my coworkers.

On particularly bad days, when I felt as if my soul was suffocating, I would rip everything off of the bulletin board over my desk and replace it all with a single quote, a favorite of mine to this day:

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.”
-Bessie Stanley

This quote is basically my life philosophy and you, dear reader, having just learned that about me, have now probably ascertained in three seconds what it took me five years to learn -- that I had made most definitely made a huge mistake in my career choice.

In saying this, I don’t mean to imply there was anything inherently wrong with the company, or my job, or the advertising industry, just that it was a particularly bad fit for ME. I needed to feel like I was doing something positive, fixing something, helping people, just generally putting GOOD out into the world, and I wasn’t doing any of that, unless of course, you find yourself particularly moved by some wonderfully descriptive copy about the flavor and crunch of a particular brand of pretzels.

Mercifully, my ill-chosen career was temporary because my husband and I planned that I would stay home with our children. As soon as I got pregnant with our first child, the countdown began.

After the baby was born and I settled into my new career as a stay-at-home mom, the biggest adjustment was the lack of opportunity for adult conversation during the day. Other than that, I can honestly say I have never missed my job.

I don’t consider the years I spent there time wasted though. because if I had chosen the “right” career path, and who knows what that would have been, it would have made it a hundred million times harder to quit and not look back when I had my babies. So in one respect the wrong career was, for me, the right one after all. I don’t really have any regrets.

My true job right now, first and foremost, is being a mother. And this suits me well. There are three little people on whose lives I can make the biggest impact there is. The work is hard, SO ridiculously hard... and the hours are long, but the rewards are plentiful. I’m happy and fulfilled just knowing three lives “breathe easier” because I am here.

I am also a writer. My six-year-old self knew it. The paths I took never strayed far from it. I forgot it for awhile when writing became a job I dreaded going to every day; but it’s a part of me I can’t deny. I AM a writer. I have ALWAYS been a writer. I WILL always be a writer.

I don’t need it to make a difference in the lives of thousands or millions or even hundreds.

As a mother, if I can raise my three little people to be good, kind, and productive members of society, then I have put good out into the world and I have done my job.

As a writer, if I can touch even just a handful of people with what I have to say, than I’ve done what I am supposed to do.

For me at least, THIS is the meaning of success.