End of an era

As of tomorrow, my husband will no longer be a member of the media.

This is a very strange notion to me because the man has been a reporter longer than he has been my husband. His first newspaper job was at a tiny little publication run by a hard-working staff of about ten folks who literally did everything from running the presses to writing the ad copy. It was the money from that first job that bought my engagement ring. Over the years, he steadily moved up the newspaper food chain, finally landing his current spot five years ago. When we moved here, this was to be just one more rung on the ladder; two years, and we'd be moving on to bigger and better yet again, we thought.

And here we are half a decade later ... putting down the closest thing to roots that our family has ever had. By the time Jo was five and a half, she had called five different places (and three states) home. In comparison, Logan took his first steps in this house. He has slept in the same bedroom since shortly before his first birthday. I never dreamed of this kind of stability from my journalist husband.

A new venture for him means no new adventures for us--not for a while at least. He is leaving behind the media job and striking out into the unknown territory of public relations for a rather ambitious, successful young political hot shot. He's a little nervous as to what this means but, hey, it has to be better than the last three years or so of reporting. Frankly, I'm a little nervous, too. I've never stayed put for so long before. What if my ever-present shadow of homesickness threatens to overtake me? What if I get bored of the landscape? What if my children decide once and for all that they are Washingtonians?

I don't know what the next few years will look like. Heck, I don't know what the next few weeks will look like. But looking back, I had no idea what the future would hold when I accepted that .25 karat diamond from a man making $14,000 a year, either. All I knew was that I loved him, and that the joy of being together was worth whatever it took to make sure his was the face I saw every morning when I woke up. I still feel that way... with or without the title "staff writer."