The shoe fell: Thurlow is furloughed for the foreseeable future

Over the majority of my journalism career, I skip sleeping on deadline into production day. Ask my teams, they'll tell you.

Before the paginators, before the front desk staff and before the ad reps entered the building, I was already at my desk, purposefully pounding the keys, with my legs crossed and my heels pointing in opposite directions.

I know it's not for everyone, but for me, it always made the most sense. My mind is always racing, checking off items here and there. Even if I do sleep, the dreams are so elaborate and vivid that I end up waking up feeling worse than if I had pulled the all-nighter.

Either way, I did that. Last night. No one is really surprised. The writing process isn't always as simple as ask, listen, ingest, unload. So naturally, amidst my twilight tyranny of typing, I get distracted. I listen to a song. I sing the song. I listen to another. I perform before a crowd in my empty apartment. I make a pot of coffee on my French press. I shift from the couch to the bed, and then belly-down on the floor. I stare at the notes that I took during the three-hour long meeting of the week with my hands squeezing my face between them. The key words from a particular quote take me back to the moment one board member launched a facial expression at another. And suddenly, I'm knee-deep in a word glossary wormhole researching the art of lutherie to try and craft the lede for my art feature. Somehow, after all that, I can still manage to crank out several thousand words necessary to report back on the news happening in my coverage area.

Unlike a lot of other mornings in the past, I was especially ahead. For those in the news world, you'll understand why that feeling was a bit worrisome. That feeling usually means that after having an entire newspaper laid out, a breaking news story will slash through your plan. Today, it didn't. That was, until the publishers called for us to gather around the phone for a call around 4 o'clock in the middle of production day. And just like that, the shoe dropped. My newspaper, the newspaper I work at, has been "suspended until further notice."

As I began to let the words settle into my head, I began to look off, in no particular direction. Over the course of these few months, I went from having three jobs to nothing. Work has always been my go-to. And being a journalist takes up a big part of my identity. I've prided myself on being the one to make connections, the one to help, the one to spotlight areas of life that need it ... now what? Who am I without that? Where do I go from here?

Maybe this will turn out to be a step in a new direction. Who knows? But for now, Emily Thurlow is furloughed for the foreseeable future.