Living Lois Lane: The One That Got Away

"I want to have won my first Pulitzer Prize for newspaper editing ... and own at least 200 pairs of shoes." -- my response to the question "What do you hope to have accomplished by our 10-year reunion"
in the senior edition of The Clover Leaves, June 8, 2000

Alanis Morrisette is full of crap. A fly in your Chardonnay -- or rain on your wedding day ... That's not irony.

Declaring in your senior quote that you'd win a Pulitzer by your 10-year reunion ... Getting your dream job right out of college ... Losing it four and a half years later ... And watching your former newspaper go on to win the Pulitzer in the spring that marks 10 years since you graduated from high school ... Now THAT is irony.

Bad irony, but irony just the same.

It's the kind of irony that gives a person reason to stop and check their surroundings to make sure that they aren't, in fact, in hell.

On the day of Pulitzergate, I took my laptop into the kitchen so I could follow an online recipe for pumpkin-spice muffins. And there it was, a huge headline on my homepage: "Seattle Times awarded Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Lakewood officers' slayings."

They had won ...? The Pulitzer ... ? While I was ... cutting down a Christmas tree?

No, really. The afternoon of the horrific shootings, we went and cut down our tree. So instead of being Lois Lane, I was a lumberjack.

Great. Just fabulous.

Of course I was happy for my friends still there, but that came later. Hey, no one ever said grief was rational.

And I went through all five stages in about an hour.

1. Denial: I couldn't believe they had won, or more specifically, that The News Tribune had lost. The shootings were right in their backyard. They were on the scene immediately. They knew the area, the background. I kept remembering how in 2005 we got a staff-wide e-mail from our furious executive editor because the day before, a Sunday, reporters who were called upon to cover the Tacoma Mall shootings said they didn't want to drive down to Tacoma. The one time they crossed the county line, they won a Pulitzer?!

2. Anger: My line of thinking somehow translated into an expletive laden voicemail to the one person who would understand: Chris. At that moment, I wasn't calling my husband. I was calling a fellow journalist, one that had not only been screwed by his own company (the King County Journal, which closed in 2006 in the wake of its publisher's utter inability to run anything except his mouth) but also mine, the same paper that told me, upon word of his job's demise, that they would take care of us, that they would do whatever they could to keep me at The Times.

I hung up -- and burst into tears.

For being someone who can be reduced to a bawling mess over Christmas-tree lots (I feel bad for the unwanted trees), you'd think I would have cried more over the loss of my career. But stunned silence and/or righteous indignation usually won out instead. In actuality, I didn't even lose it until I got home on my last night at The Times. For those counting, that's 42 miles of cold, icy stoicism.

But that rainy April afternoon, standing in my kitchen, I cried.

I cried for what I had lost, and I cried for what they had gained.

3. Bargaining: If I could have another chance, I reasoned with God, I could do better than before. I wouldn't be late for work. I would work harder on my headlines. If I could just have my job back, if I could just have ONE shot at winning the Pulitzer, I'd do better, I swear.

4. Depression: The news of the Pulitzer had a far greater sense of finality than my arbitration did, and boy did I feel like a failure. Not only could The Times get by with fewer desk editors, but it also could thrive. It could be honored with the pinnacle of journalistic excellence. They. Didn't. Need. Me. Maybe they never did.

5. Acceptance: Even if I got my job back the next day, that Pulitzer would never be mine. I wasn't there to win it -- and, realistically, I knew, I wouldn't be there for the next one. My career at The Seattle Times was over. I had muffins to bake. And I had a life to live.

So I focused on what would come next, rather than what had already happened. But, and this is what all of my recent self-reflection boils down to, it's not easy to ask yourself at age 27 what you want to do with your life -- especially when you've known since you were 12.

Sure, I had other goals at points. In first grade, I wanted to teach either third grade (because by then, you could tie your shoes) or college (because grown-ups don't whine about things like recess -- ha!), and in fifth grade, I wanted to be a soap-opera star (until my mom put the clamps on my lofty ambitions). I had a fleeting moment in seventh grade where I wanted to be a heart surgeon (or at least make out with Dr. Doug Ross ... mmm, Clooney), but being Lois Lane is the one that stuck. And you don't just turn that off.

So, over time, I have realized that my life still includes journalism. That I'm not going to apply for just any job so I can say that I have one. I didn't sell out before, and I'm not going to now. If I am going to work hard -- and leave my son, no less -- it has to be for something I love.

But here's the thing: It's not my heart telling me to stay in this profession. My heart knows better. It's been broken. Badly.

It's my head that keeps telling me that it's not over. That I have spent my entire life working toward this. That I may not get my Pulitzer, but that I have put too much ink, sweat and tears into journalism to just walk away.

So I may not work at The Times. So I may not have 200 pairs of shoes. So newspapers may be dying. That doesn't mean I have to.

The Pulitzer got away from me. I let Chris get away once (OK, twice), and had that happened, I wouldn't have my amazing son.

I'm not going to make the same mistake with the other love of my life.

Roll the presses.