This morning when Dan came to wake me up, he was laughing about how ESPN was advertising the fact that they are live, on location for the National Spelling Bee. It is pretty funny, when you think about it, that the same network that broadcasts football also gives minute by minute coverage of 13-year-olds spelling really long words. But I would say that on the scale of dramatic competitive moments, it's actually kind of hard to top the National Spelling Bee. I know this because I've been there. It was seven years ago and I was there not as a contestant, but as a newspaper reporter. It was very fitting that on this particular morning, the memory of that experience should come to mind.

When Dan came in to wake me up today, he was helping me start what will be my last full time day of employment in newspapers for the foreseeable future. With my life as a mommy set to start at the end of the summer, I've decided to take the next three months off to spend time with family and friends, get the nursery ready, and just generally have a transition period between full time employment outside the home and full time employment in the home. This is a decision that was made months ago, and I'm happy about it and feel privileged in a lot of ways to have all my options open. I know that not everyone does.

But this morning, my last day has finally arrived, and I found myself thinking about spelling bees. In 2000, I was a college student, and I somehow got accepted to a program that paid for me to go live in Washington, D.C. for a month with a bunch of other students, work as a stringer for my paper back home, and learn all about how to be a reporter. My first real assignment for the program and, as it turned out, for my newspapering life, was to go to the National Spelling Bee and write about the little girl who was there from Mississippi. I spent two days at the bee, talked to the girl's mom, met a lot of other contestants from all over the country and was struck by how the whole experience, in some cases, seemed to be much more stressful for the parents of the contestants than for the contestants themselves. I ended up leading my story with a parent interview talking about how nerve-wracking it is to watch your child compete. I got really good feedback for finding an interesting angle on what could have been a pretty standard spelling bee story. Looking back, it still wasn't a very good story, but it was the first time I thought "Wow. Maybe I could really be a newspaper reporter. That might be kind of cool."

Well, as of now, I have been a newspaper reporter for five years, three years at community newspapers in small towns, and approximately 2 at a business newspaper in a bigger town. And it has been pretty cool, in a lot of weird, unexpected ways. Because of those small town experiences, I guarantee you I've been to more spelling bees than the average American citizen. I also can't even begin to count how many parades I've attended. Small towns love to have parades. It's like the default celebration for everything. It's a very endearing trait, even if it does get annoying to have to be the one to photograph and write about all these high school marching bands and local dance troupes. There are perks. You do get candy.

All those memories are coming back to me today, and I know, as I've known somewhere in my mind all through the process of choosing to walk away right now, that I am going to miss newspapers in all their stressful glory a little bit, if only because it's rare to find a job where you get to sit down with total strangers and ask them to tell you about their life. When you are a reporter, not only is that not considered socially awkward, but also, people will tell you the most fascinating things if you sit there long enough and they believe you really want to know. They'll tell you about how much they loved their parents and when they fell in love with their spouse, and how they felt when their kids were born and their war stories and they do it when really, they don't have to tell you anything. And that's what makes it's a privilege when they do. There are a lot of things that I am not going to miss about the life of a reporter. But I will miss those moments a lot, because they are the ones that have meant the most to me over the years.

So here's to spelling bees. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a last day to get to.