Three Aprils so similar, yet so different

Birthday is coming up soon, and it's made me reflect on where, exactly I have been the last three years around this time.

2008: Arrived in Denver the day before my birthday and (re)interviewed at the Rocky Mountain News for what would turn out to be my second -- yet shortlived -- trip through that newsroom. I had been unemployed for just shy of three months and had been talking first to the Seattle Times about a design job and then with the Rocky about an online sports job. Turns out I would end up back at the Rocky, a run which ended surprisingly short and led to . . .

2009: After the Rocky closed at the end of February, I spent most of March working with my former colleagues from the newspaper looking for a way to start an online news site. We eventually settled on a group of investors -- and I use that term loosely -- behind INDenverTimes.com. I should have known from the moment I had to speak it's awkward name that it wasn't going anywhere, but I let myself believe. But by the time my birthday rolled around I was in Hawaii just waiting for the word that by then I knew was inevitable: the investors didn't have anything to actually invest and that once again, I was going to spend my spring begging for a job. But the silver lining in the venture was meeting Casey Nikoloric, who handled the PR and marketing strategy from about the second week of the INDT mess until the end. That, of course, leads to . . .

2010: It's a fine line between independent and unemployed, but I certainly feel like the former this time around. Through Casey and her collaborative TEN|10 Group, I've already launched one website for some good people doing good things, working on two websites for more good people who want to do more good things and hoping to work on add more. Writing when I get a chance, reading when I get a chance and more or less finding my footing for a life outside the comfort -- and I use that word loosely, as well -- zone of newspapers. In all three years I have been without steady, secure employment, without an office and wondering just how much longer I have health insurance. But in all three years the outlook has been different. Two years ago, it was more of the same, just looking for a job in what I knew how to do. A year ago, it was staring into the same abyss so many in this country faced, not knowing what, if anything, was waiting out there. This time, it's about starting something new.