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just realized something with a little help from google, and want to share something if you& #39;ll indulge me, something i& #39;ve been thinking a ton about in recent weeks, but it will probably be a pretty long thread, so bare with me:
one year ago tomorrow, sept 3 2019, my husband & i opened the door of kids fun stop, an indoor playspace we& #39;d bought in w. roxbury, taking over as new owners and re-opening after a fresh coat of paint and some new toys.
i& #39;d emptied my (very modest) 401k to buy it, because it was my exit strategy from sports media. Marcus has a job he loves and we have a high schooler so i wouldn& #39;t uproot my family even if i wanted to return to beat writing, which i did *not* want to do.
i was grateful to yahoo that i was able to work from home after Harper was born in 2015, but aggregating other reporters& #39; stories had grown stale. i needed a new challenge, and Harper was starting pre-K. so the opportunity to buy kfs came and we went for it.
the plan was for me to write from the business for a year while we figured out what the profits were like, and if it was enough for me to leave yahoo (and sports media) entirely.
i loved kfs - i got to interact with little kids (but they left with their caregiver lol), i met some great families, and it was of course nice to have that extra money for our own family. Marcus worked on NFL Sundays, our oldest helped with parties...it was great.
then 2 days before christmas i got a call that thanks to Cali& #39;s #AB5 which was set to go into effect on jan 1, i& #39;d likely be losing my job (i had freelancer status with yahoo at that time).
with literally nothing to lose at this point (and with some inside info that he was a fan of my writing), i pitched myself to yahoo sports editor Johnny Ludden as a sports columnist. there& #39;s really no Black female sports columnists, I told him, why not me?
Johnny agreed to let me try it.
fast forward to march 15. we close the doors at kfs for what we think will be a couple of weeks and just to be good community members. but the next day gov. baker forced all businesses in the state to close.
fast forward to march 15. we close the doors at kfs for what we think will be a couple of weeks and just to be good community members. but the next day gov. baker forced all businesses in the state to close.
in july, with our rent debt and other bills mounting and no end in sight to covid - and no green light yet to re-open businesses like ours - Marcus and I decided to close kfs.
for a week i sat at the desk in the building, selling off toys and equipment, pieces of our business.
for a week i sat at the desk in the building, selling off toys and equipment, pieces of our business.
it sucked. it was heartbreaking. i was sad and i was pissed, but i take some comfort that it wasn& #39;t *our* failure - it wasn& #39;t anything we did that led to kfs closing.
but it turns out, i don& #39;t just love being a columnist, yahoo thinks i& #39;m really good at it. a couple of weeks ago i turned down a job offer from another outlet, got a raise, and won& #39;t be leaving yahoo anytime soon.
i didn& #39;t want to leave. i love this work. but i love yahoo - i& #39;ve never felt so supported and so heard. i& #39;ve sat in meetings at previous employers and wondered why the hell i was there because my ideas were falling on deaf ears and my pregnancies were made out to be inconveiences
