You've Got Mail

A friend recommended You've Got Mail as a good movie to watch while I'm in this time of transition, grieving one job and starting to look for another. It's one of my favorites. I've been thinking about watching it all week and this afternoon was the perfect chance to curl up on the couch and enjoy some classic Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan chemistry.

Before I've always watched the movie as a romantic comedy, which it is, but it's also about losing something you love. A part of your life. One part, toward the end, really stuck out to me. Meg Ryan's character Kathleen has closed her children's bookstore and is home sick. Her nemesis Joe Fox (Tom Hanks), owner of Fox Books Superstore, that put her out of business, comes over to see how she's doing. He says something along the lines of "It wasn't personal, it was business" and she says, "but it was personal." And she talks about how anything worth doing becomes personal. Her store was about more than the books, it was about the people. As much as I hate to admit it, my job was personal. I found fulfillment in it. I loved the people that I worked with and the readers. I was proud of the product we produced. And while the world will survive without another pretty decorating magazine, there will be a void where Country Home used to live.

There's another scene in the movie, when Kathleen announces that she will be closing the store and one of her employees says "Closing the store is the brave thing to do. Daring to imagine that you could have a different life. You feel like a failure now, but you're not. You are marching into the unknown armed with nothing..." At the moment I have no idea what my brave unknown is. And I hate not knowing. But I'm trying to be patient. I know God has a plan for me, a vision for my life. Right now I want it to be something in magazines or publishing, or something that is creative and has to do with writing and editing. At least that's what I'm still holding onto at the moment. We'll see what this week brings.

I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday and couldn't resist looking at magazines. I may have brought boxes and boxes of magazines home, but I always have to see what's new, which includes the latest issue of Country Living, our one-time competitor. Adam was surprised to see me flipping through it, but some habits die hard. And I had to see what they were doing. I honestly don't think their product is any better than ours, for some reason they seem to be able to sell ads, but that's the way of life. And while there is a part of me that wants them to die too (there, I said it), another part of me hopes that one of us survives this economy.