And isn't it ironic, etc.

[crazyjane]

Occasionally I enter these fits of intro/retrospection ... not quite active self-evaluation, but more a sudden flood of memories that throws who/what I am now into sharp and sometimes ironic relief.

Lately it's been circling around the idea of my blog, and me becoming someone who almost reflexively self-defines as a citizen journalist, or at least a commentator.

My stepfather was a journalist, one of the old school. He started as a cadet when he was 15, learned on the job and ended up running newspapers before cancer forced him to scale back to part-time subediting work. Right up until he died, he thought and acted like a journo. I remember him sub-editing my high school assignments, and engaging in scornful critique of something in the Gold Coast Bulletin even as chemotherapy was destroying his system.

My mother was also a journalist until she became chronically ill. She mostly wrote feature articles on travel - although she did have a brief stint as an investigative reporter that included an expose of dodgy tactics and drugging in a private psychiatric hospital, which she attended as an inpatient to get the story.

Both of them pretty much assumed that at least one of the kids would end up working for the media. Since I showed interest in writing, wanting to learn to type before I was 12 and mastering basic proof-reading marks for fun (yes, sad, I know), I was the one my mother decided would follow in their footsteps. She used to tell friends that when they commented that I seemed to love reading, and was always scribbling in a notebook.

It wasn't out of any sense of pride in my achievements, though. It was always, 'Oh, she's just like me'. That's something I've heard far too often from my mother. Whether she's talking about my medical history, my reading preferences, my relationship with fire_wuff, my kids, or whatever, it's never about me as a person, on my own terms. I used to think she saw me as a smaller reflection, or maybe was trying to live vicariously through me.

Now I think she simply doesn't see me at all.

At any rate, the main effect her attitude had was to harden my opposition to whatever she said. If I was 'just like her' in some way, I'd find a way to be as different as I could possibly be. And every time something happened in my life that did parallel hers, I'd kick myself. Never mind if it was completely out of my control - such as my suffering from gallstones, or the break-up of my first marriage - I saw it as some stupid kind of victory for her. And I'd redouble my efforts to be my own person.

So it was with the idea that I'd follow in the footsteps of my parents to be a journalist, or writer, or be in some way involved with making the media. Even though I loved to read and to write, I became determined not to prove them 'right'. I channelled my energy into academic research, literary analysis, poetry - anything but 'journalism'. I suppose, in some perverse way, I thought I was 'winning' against them.

And yet, as the man says in the joke, 'now I are one'. I write articles of political analysis and commentary. I make media. I've been published by a major news organisation; have a blog that's becoming well-regarded to the point where 'regular' journos and politicians take the trouble to find out what I'm writing and respond; write media releases for everyone from the La Trobe SRC to pagan organisations to political parties; and think nothing of bashing out an average of 1000 words at a time.

I'm not writing poetry or fiction. I'm back doing some academic work, but it's almost like dabbling.

In short, I'm doing what my parents always said I would. Quelle ironique, huh?

I can appreciate the idiocy of how I feel, and I am proud of what I'm achieving (if a little flabbergasted). It just rankles, somehow.






Sooner or later, I figure I'm going to finally put my parents behind me, where they belong. It just hasn't happened so far.