Was reminded of this sad ? but happy piece of news from 10/29/2017. Something I didn’t know then was that F. Amanda Tugade (former editor of the defunct The Tinley Junction newspaper)’s departure sparked my slow but sure climb back to #journalism. What a phantom thread ??fate is. Sometimes you don’t know why you do the things you do until later. And I think somewhere in my subconscious mind, seeing a talented writer, and editor for that matter, leave turned on a button of some sort.

There’s a scene from one of my favorite movies: Sabrina (1995) and now it makes more sense than ever to me. Here’s the lynchpin of it:

“I wrote nonsense in a journal…
And then, somehow, it was not nonsense.”

I went from silly mom blogger to a freelance journalist. I went from young woman to mother. I’m still rocking it with my husband and our business designing websites and all that good digital and tech jazz, but now I’ve got all parts of me lit up.

It took a long time, a lot of hard work, and a lot of trying new things I’d never thought I could do. And now all the nonsense I thought I did and went through was not nonsense. It all prepared me to be able to juggle and excel at the things I focus on, the things that I wouldn’t give up for the world.

There is no straight line to success, or being happy, but sometimes we create these chutes and ladders we think we need to go through only to find out that what we were meant to do was just around the corner, and right inside.

I learned a lot of that here in Tinley Park, that you don’t always have to go far to find what you’re looking for, or what you need. It’s what you make of everything around you. I read a local newspaper, I slowly came out of my shell, and 4 years later I feel like I’m 8 years old again—excited, happy, and all the sappy things.

I was looking to make mom friends and send out a flare to fellow Tinley outsiders and newbies of where we all are. 4 years later and I have almost exactly 2.0k moms socializing and finding their mom village. Our moms didn’t have any of these things we have now, and I’m so glad I made the most of all these things these last 4 years, because these tools ⚒️ helped me make that climb back to journalism…and to this really nice view of life.

So if you keep reading what I write, thank you, and maybe someday I’ll be writing to you from another height (The New Yorker, Vogue, who knows?). And if you don’t read me anywhere else but on tinleyparkmom.com and the Daily Southtown, I’d like to think I’ll inspire someone like me, who is young or hasn’t made the climb yet, to try and go even further than I can, in whatever field they’re in.

Thanks F. Amanda Tugade, to wherever you’re writing ✍?.