In honor of Newspaper Week, I would like to tell you why I don’t work at a newspaper. I don’t work at The Bradford Era. Print media is important, and it is at times, mentally exhausting, heartbreaking, and chaotic — but for me, I can’t call it work.

There is nothing mundane or monotonous about newspaper life. Every day is a new adventure, a chance to learn something, meet someone. Not a day goes by that I don’t do research or investigate to learn more about what I am writing. I never feel that growl in the pit of my stomach that screams, “you HAVE to go to work.”

I wander around my yard and watch the wildlife, enjoying the peaceful moments of the morning. While drinking my coffee, I take 30 minutes to watch “Curious George” before getting on my way to the newsroom each day. I no longer race around the house, stressed out that I have to go to work.

I GET TO GO. Get to and have to are not the same. It’s like learning to say no. Words matter. One of the reasons for coming in each day is because my words on the page matter to those who read them.

I am a curious person. I want to know what makes things happen the way they do. I think many people want to know more about such things. I am also, sometimes, quiet. Sitting back and watching life go by, picking out the details that are surprising, which is another part of what I love about what I do at the newspaper. Taking photos is new for me. Catching a bug or a chipmunk in just the right light and then writing a caption, we call them cutlines, that matches the photo gets to the creative side of my being. It’s fun.

In all my years on this spinning ball, I would never have planned to be a reporter; heck, I never planned to go to college. Thanks to an offer to do a feature article from Judy Hopkins many years ago while I was in her news writing class, I discovered a knack for writing. Hopkins saw something in my work that I did not. She helped me secure an internship at the paper the next semester, which lasted over a year.

This internship was the greatest experience in my working life. I only had a few article assignments and the rest of my time was doing daily work: obituaries, weather, club news, police reports, and other small items. I worked full time elsewhere, attending undergrad, and raising very active kids at the time. As much fun as I was having, I had to give it up.

Ah, but fate has its way and I was welcomed back nearly 13 years later. I still do weather and obituaries and other daily items; all reporters at small papers do. But I get to do so much more, too. So far, over the last year and a half, I have written about concerts and car shows, court proceedings and police investigations, industry advancements and non-profit needs, opening nights and closing stores, coming together and falling apart. I can’t say what has been my most memorable article, but I have received positive feedback on many pieces. This is still strange to me, one day I might get used to it, probably not.

There are many articles on my to-do list at the moment and I can’t wait to get started on them.

Jobs take up more than 40 years of a person’s life, and for most they will work for many more than 40 years. It’s been said that if you find a job you like, you will never work a day in your life. I quit working when I left my previous job. It is wonderful to not work. To be a member of a team who loves what they do.

(Email Mandy Colosimo at m.colosimo@bradfordera.com)