I needed this.

I'm always caught off guard when the good things happen because I just expect bad. When you do something right, you don't usually receive a kiss on the forehead. Your moment of pride passes by without recognition. It's when you eff it all up that you hear about it. I've known this for a long time, so it doesn't bother me anymore.
I just have to hold tightly to the few "atta girl"s and pats on the back I do receive because I'm the kind of person who is more likely to remember my failures than my successes.

My first and (so far) only year as an editor was a giant experiment. I was new to this, but knew I could do a better job than what I had seen. I just needed to figure some things out-- what were the people interested in? What did they hate? In the end, sure, I learned a lot, but I still had a pretty colorful collection of bruises to my ego. They hated a lot of it and I sure heard about it. It was more difficult for me than I let anyone know. I don't handle criticism well. All I could do is claim the victories I did have and remember that I took risks, instead of sticking to the typical Lifeline formula.

I found out today that I won some awards. The Michigan Press Association gave me First place in Feature Writing for "Growing Up With the Dead" (which is the one award I have wanted since I began at CMU) and second place in column writing for "Boo Humbug".
I'm happy. I just don't really know the specifics, yet.