A thing called life, after newspapers

Crazy to think, a year ago today, I was working for The Huntsville Item as a reporter. Of course, as life would happen, I left there two months later, started working for another newspaper who called asking for me to work for them and by that summer, had retired from journalism all together.

After quitting my big corporate job at Dell Computers to pursue my dream of becoming a journalist, and six years of living my dream, I decided to retire.

I had my fun as a reporter. Covering many interesting events like meeting Bill Gates, covering campaign events for Hillary Clinton and now president Obama, to interviewing family members of those who passed in the BP oil rig explosion, to covering a murder trial, a boy who was bitten by a shark, touring a nuclear power plant, to the most scariest assignment ever - covering a Texas death row execution.

Me and Bob Phillips (Texas Country Reporter)

I was once an editor for a newspaper with a 5,000 weekly circulation and then an editor for another newspaper with 20,000 circulation. 

I had my fun.

Yep, this SWAT assignment happened.

Front page stories in daily paper.

I can go on an on about how much I accomplished In such a small amount of time, but all that doesn't matter now. I knew I was done with the newspaper business last summer. I had lost that passion. The eagerness to go out there and get the story. 

How did this happen?

Last summer I was a breaking news reporter for a daily newspaper in south Texas. The editor was a bitch. One of the few reasons I left newspapers.

I would go cover anything breaking news: fatalities, murders, court cases. One morning as I was settling in for a day of "happy" assignments, I got a call that there had been an fatality on the highway. It was a motorcycle vs an 18-wheeler. The motorcyclist failed to stop, 18-wheeler didn't see him coming, ran over him. The only thing that was left were the tires. But before I went to get the information from police on the scene. I hung up the phone and said in a loud voice, "Really? Well that's a stupid way to die."

I had lost that human connection. So much death coverage, accidents and deaths meant nothing to me. I was always so focused on getting the news, that I had forgotten those were actually real people.

I decided to reevaluate my life, and I left.

A month later I was accepted to the teacher program and two weeks later a job with Midland ISD.

To this day, I miss journalism, but I knew it was time to exit the building.

Comments? Email me acosta6348@gmail.com