Somebody Has To

But why me?

By Lisa Hayes-Minney

My 90-year-old mother doesn’t understand.

“I thought you weren’t going to do this,” she said.

“I wasn’t,” I reply.

“So, why?”

“Somebody has to.”

“But, I don’t understand why it has to be you.”

<sigh> “Mother, I truly don’t quite understand that either.”

This is not the first time we’ve had this sort of conversation.

This latest thing I’ve taken on is likely one of the dumbest, most idiotic, decisions I have made in my life (and that’s saying something), and will likely fill me with ongoing, lifelong regrets.

But at the same time, citizen journalism is the future of local journalism and suddenly, I’ve been presented with a dire need for such when I have training in News Literacy and Civic Engagement, Teaching Digital Citizenship, Ethics of Journalism & Freedom of Information, and Community Journalism: Strategies for Managing Local Contributors.

Of course, Mother doesn’t know what any of that means. Most normal people don’t — I’m a bit of a geek.

I try to explain by sharing with her: spontaneous conversations in a Taco Bell two counties over, a comment made by the mayor, the story of the former first lieutenant, the leap in subscriptions, the research and documentation I’ve culled and cannot, for the life of me, figure out.

The person who could best help me died during the Covid pandemic. But when I think of how all this has come around, I can’t rightly say she hasn’t had a hand in it somehow.

The best I can do is offer a quote from Jeremy Goldberg:

I’ve been in situations like this enough in my life to know: courageous or stupid, both require a complete disregard for reason, and some things are just meant to happen the way they happen.

I don’t know why it has to be me. I don’t know why I’m the one who has to reprimand reporters, call a spade a spade, research non-profits, write to figure out what I’m thinking, or reflect on what I’m feeling. Why I cannot, for the life of me, refrain from commenting on the pink elephant in the middle of the room, cannot walk past something off-kilter without asking, “What’s up with that?”

I do not know why it has to be me.

And yet, these things just sort of fall within my natural skill set, enhanced by several years of education and 30 years of experience.

Name a single other local person who could do it.

A good friend recently wrote me, “I have to tell you, and I say this with love, but you do your best writing when you’re pissed off.”

It’s a God-given talent. Truly. I wrote my first letter to the editor when I was 14.

In the end, I don’t have to know why I have once again lost touch with reason. Why people who have known me for years are just shaking their heads saying, “Lisa, the things you get yourself into.”

I shake my head too and just shrug. What can I say? I tend to get myself into things, even when I know better.

I don’t know why, but sometimes, it does have to be me.