I also became a teacher - but my eyes were always on another career: writing. Should I go back to school and study journalism? I often wondered as I trudged off to work, thick file of marking in my briefcase. I was tired of my daily marking "homework." But taking a year off work to study full time was a luxury I didn't think our family could afford.
When my kids were in their teens, I did take a correspondence course in journalistic writing and submitted articles to our local newspaper. Some were published. Others weren't.
The closest I got to working in a newspaper was a brief internship I did at our local newspaper one summer. I could have inquired about a full-time job at that time... But I didn't. Why? Looking back, I think that I didn't know if I could make it as a journalist, and I did know I could teach.
None of my children followed me into teaching.
Why would we want to do all that marking? they replied when I asked them why.
You wanted it so badly, I thought it might be fun to try, he once told me.
Now he is a young journalist who loves his job. And a story he wrote about a Canadian con-man who stole antiques - and made a lot of money before he was discovered - has been nominated for a Canadian writing award.
I don't expect to ever win a writing award, but I like to think that my hopes and dreams had a small part in that story being written.
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