Catching up and moving on

Go for two weeks without blogging and a lot happens, including:

• Friends and readers asking if I’m OK and when “are you going to write something again?”
• Volunteers stepping up to help serve meals on a Saturday in late February to about 90 people who showed up for Loaves & Fishes at MCSA — more on that in a bit.
• The calendar telling me last week was the one-year anniversary of my not-planned-by-me departure from the news business.

To be honest, I didn’t know what to say last week about the anniversary. So, in a rare turn of events for me, I didn’t say anything. It was best that way. Looking back at what I wrote last year, I did enough whining then for a lifetime as I worked through that whole dark episode. But I can now honestly say if they offered me my old job back today, I wouldn’t take it.  I’m in a better place.

How good?

Well, Wednesday we are beginning a minor remodeling project that will result in my moving into a nicer office. When the dust settles, I will be in a bigger office that is connected by a door to the office of MCSA Executive Director Maggie Curry.  Maggie and I work together on many things and this should make it even easier.

But in addition to proximity to the boss, I’ll have an office that is big enough to hold a desk, a good-sized conference table, a credenza, a sofa and maybe even a couple of comfortable chairs. Even I’m not sure if my having a sofa so close is a good idea. But it should give me a place to do lot of creative thinking. Yeah, that’s it. Creative thinking. (And I’m really not trying to gloat here, but my old office at the newspaper was about the size of a spacious closet.)

Did I already mention how well they treat me at MCSA, my new employer?

It’s the kind of place where Barb Fick, one of my co-workers,  along with board members Thresa VanWey, Father Joseph Sia and Linda DePuydt worked hard on Feb. 23, when MCSA organized a volunteer crew to serve the meal for Loaves & Fishes.

The ironic thing about this is that I organized a crew to serve this meal on the same weekend last year before I lost my newspaper job. It’s funny how much things can change — and yet still stay the same — in a 12-month period.

But instead of wrestling with the bitterness I felt last year, I’m just grateful for the chance given to me at MCSA.

So to answer the question asked of me last week by a a few friends who wanted to know why I wasn’t blogging: Yeah, I’m doing OK. Maybe even a little better than that.

I don’t know what the next year will bring, but I’m glad to have made it through the past year.