Milestone: My First Official Byline.

WestportMagazineNovDec2012

The most fun thing about making up your career as you go along is that you never quite know where "along" is going to go. Case in point- did I ever think I would have a byline in a magazine? Most certainly not.  I always loved to write- but given that my style is basically to type words exactly as they would come out of my mouth, aside from an occasional contributed first-person piece here and there, actually being credited on a magazine masthead as a "Contributing Writer" just didn't seem in the cards.  

When I moved back to Westport, I knew I had to get involved in the local media landscape somehow. Since there aren't any local Westport broadcast stations at the moment (or likely, um, ever), I found my way into the door of Moffly Media, the publishers of Westport Magazine.  Given that my years spent as a somewhat insecure high school student in this very zip code feel like a recent memory (even though yes, I am aware, 1994 was not yesterday), it makes me feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside when I reflect on how far I've come. I feel very proud to have grown into a person with the confidence to pitch myself as a writer directly to the Editor-in-Cheif of the most prestigious publication in town and walk out with an assignment.

And check out the image above- my very own page in the newest issue of Westport Magazine. (If I didn't despise the use of exclamation points so much, I would have used one at the end of the previous sentence.)

So, while the main point of this post is to share my excitement over experiencing newness in a career that is almost old enough to have it's own B'at Mitzvah, as I write it has evolved into something else. This post proves what I always say- that anyone can be anything. The boy-crazy captain of the cheerleading squad, who partied more than her parents likely thought, was always scared to raise her hand in class and swore she would never move back to the town where mean girls made her cry, can return to the place she never expected to call home again and see her name on the masthead of the very magazine she grew up reading.

Oh- and as I read over this post,  I realize that this it exemplifies the exact reason why I never thought I would have a byline in a print publication- I write how I talk, and when I talk, stories that start out in one direction tend to take unexpected detours and end up being about something totally different.  Oops.