Back to the Future

If I step back, I realize how incredible my town is.  I can get to the Upper West Side in under an hour, but live in what looks like a snapshot of Vermont.  But life with two commuting parents is difficult.  That leaves this question hanging in the air between many of us around town:  What did you used to do?  My used to do sounds decent enough.  I was a freelance writer.  But as I raised my daughters, my used to do evaporated before my eyes, as the magazines I wrote for ceased publication and the whole industry tanked.  Now I used to do it with a whole lot of people.  For years, it was easy to just say no to magazines even as the shock and awe set in.  House & Garden!  Gourmet!?  But as my kids just started school and an iPad entered our house, I felt myself turn a corner.  It's time to open my eyes again to the world that I was used to, even if it's all different now.  So my first act was to go to the library (in the neighboring town) and rip all the little subscription cards out from recent issues on the wall.  I did so as an old man sat in a beat-up leather chair right next to me.  Each time he coughed, out a new one came.  HACKKK (The New Yorker)!  SNNORT (Pyschology Today)!  It was pure cacaphony.  Soon, I was loaded up.  I wasn't proud to defile the library's collection, but inching back toward what I used to be felt long overdue. 

Comments

[Alexis]

Good for you! I don't even remember what I used to be anymore...