A brave new world

My whole life has been about change. Sometimes change came in drastic measures but I can't think, honestly, of any change that has ultimately ended poorly.

In the 18 years I lived with my parents I lived in 13 houses in five states. I attended two of each kind of school: two elementary schools, two middle schools and two high schools. By the time I got to college I stayed at the same institution but almost always changed my living arrangements with the changing of the semester.

In the years since college I've married, had children, divorced, changed jobs, briefly changed careers, had a long-term boyfriend, ended the relationship with the boyfriend and have lived in another four houses and communities.

Each change brought long-term lessons. I've learned to adapt to new surroundings and celebrate the differences in people. With each change has come an ultimate improvement: more friends, more experiences and better jobs and situations. I've learned that change happens as part of the natural progression. I recognize that just because something isn't right for me now doesn't mean it wasn't right for me back then.

In the last 10 days I've learned of another big change, this one involving my employer, Gazette Communications. While we've known for more than a year there would be some changes coming, I don't know that anyone in the newsroom anticipated the level of change that was being planned.

The company is taking a revolutionary approach to journalism and consumers will soon learn that "The Gazette" is an entire package, one parcel of which is a printed newspaper. There will be a remarkable and new online piece that will change the way those of us now known as reporters will write.

Part of the change internally is a change in jobs for everyone -- not just positions, but in the very definition as well. The jobs we currently hold will, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist. We are all looking at a variety of possibilities to determine where we fit in this "brave new world."

I look forward to this change. Rather than follow the road of layoffs, buyouts and closures that other institutions are facing, the Gazette Family of Companies is confronting the changing way society is getting their news and becoming a bold participant. I love the company that has been my professional "home" for more than three years. When I came to The Gazette in 2002 I said this was the company from which I wanted to retire.

This change is far from being about me. Yet I have to look at the advantages and ramifications such a change will bring to me and to my children. Many questions remain to be answered: how will we be paid, how will the cycle work, what equipment will be provided and is there a place for everyone? In this world of newspaper layoffs, shrinking content and closures, I can only assume the answer to the last question is "no."

We have all been charged with creating a plan of action we would like to take in the new structure. As I look at my own plan I can't help but wonder if, although The Gazette was right for me three years ago, it is still right for me now.

From the mutant gallery

A little more than a year ago my son took great pleasure in National Geographic's assertion that redheads came from a mutant gene. Well, more accurately, that red hair is caused by a mutated gene.

I let him have his fun, but what I didn't find particularly amusing was the statement, in the same article, that redheads would be extinct by the year 2100. (I read it at the time but can no longer find it online -- September 2007) The author went on to say that the last redheaded baby would be born in 2060.

Not if my family has any say in the matter.

Attend any Rossiter family reunion and you know where you are: although neither my father nor any of his three sisters had red hair (I don't think so -- not that I remember, anyway) of the 15 grandchildren on the Rossiter side, eight of us have some shade of red hair. My brother, one of the brunettes, made up for it by marrying a redhead and having two redheaded daughters.

Get to the great-grandchildren and -- unbelievably -- the great-great-grandchildren and the numbers just keep climbing.

With the news that we may be going extinct, I've set about a personal unscientific study of sorts. For the last 18 months I've been looking around, watching people and trying to judge for myself if the redhead is a disappearing breed.

What I've noticed, outside my own family, is that there are still many men and women with hints of red or completely red hair, red beards. A friend and former co-worker had a baby last year -- a cute little strawberry blonde. My cousin had a new granddaughter last year -- another redhead.

I see more redheaded adults, and watch -- to his dismay -- as my son's hair grows more and more strawberry all the time.

Extinction? Not hardly.

Here we go ...

The holiday season is, officially, over.

OK, so it's been over for three days. But really, when New Year's Day falls on a Thursday, can you really expect to begin your resolutions that or the next, then go into the weekend? I can't -- resolutions for me always start best with the start of a week, so Monday has always been Day One.

This year's Day One is tomorrow. That's not to say I haven't been gearing up for it: I went in to work out yesterday morning and it wasn't even my day to work (a habit I'd fallen out of in the last several months); I had breakfast -- cereal and a half a grapefruit -- both yesterday and today, in an effort to work with that tried-and-true belief that it really is the most important meal of the day; I've done a lot of standing and walking rather than sitting.

There is no pressure for me this year. No wedding, no reunion, no graduation. This is something I'm doing for me -- only me. I had, for some time, changed my habits and had done very well. Then I re-introduced myself to an old friend -- cigarettes, for three years. When I gave those up, despite my efforts to bust the quit-smoking-gain-weight pattern, I gained weight. Not a lot, but enough. Enough to take me two sizes bigger than when I was smoking, but not nearly enough to put me back in the size 24s I wore before my divorce.

They say this is the Year of Change, so I'm hopping on that bandwagon. Starting with Day One.