I remember swinging in my childhood park as a young girl, closing my eyes while I swung toward the sun and the sky, seeing shades of red, yellow and orange swirling from behind my eyelids. I remember how free I felt in those moments, feeling as if I were flying into the sun itself; invincible.

I remember on that same swing that I used to look at this big tree - one of those bushy, perfectly rounded light-green trees you’d find in a coloring book at that age. I remember thinking to myself how I so badly wanted to end up in a newspaper. I wanted to be in the newspaper, and I really don’t know why.

I imagined that when I would grow up, I would end up in the newspaper for saving a kitten from that very tree, like in the movies. I would be cherished for my bravery, and everyone would look up to me and know my name.

I guess it was important to feel like I’d be remembered, and that I’d do something amazing one day. At the time, saving a kitten was the best I could come up with to hit the “doing something amazing” mark, but it is quite ironic that I chose a newspaper to be the delivery of that news. Albeit back then there was barely social media and certainly not smartphones to deliver the news, but there was still television, so why did I choose a newspaper? Well, my life started in the newspaper.

I was at the Fairlane Village Mall and the Republican Herald snapped a photo of 1-year-old Maria Rehrig on the lap of Santa on Saturday, Nov. 25, 2000. Archives online allowed me to find that date for the sake of the story, which leads me directly into my point - why a newspaper?

Newspapers capture memories in a way nothing else does. At the same time every day that the newspaper runs, people all throughout the receiving counties get their copies and collectively share a moment that day. Something that is rare to new generations was something so common not so long ago.

A newspaper allows a single moment to be shared between those who read it and their archives capture memories all on paper, forever. Computers are now in the mix to help deliver news and save copies online, but I think the sentiment of the collective reading when the story first goes live is what makes it so beautiful. (I’m trying to make the majority of us that read newspapers online feel better.)

To this day, something that hasn’t changed are the words themselves and their ability to bring people together for a shared moment and to be able to reflect on that same moment 21 years later.

To be honest, I don’t think my little self had imagined that she’d be the one writing for a newspaper - I think she wanted the attention to herself; to be written about. I also don’t think she knew she’d have to grow up to get a job in general but that’s a story for a different day.

For now, this story is about the unexpected turns the universe takes to get you to your goal. I’m in the newspaper, and maybe I still am doing something amazing here, even if it’s not quite as heroic as saving a kitten from a tree.

Maybe the amazing thing is to just share the story and invite you to share the moment, brought to all of us by the young person within, with dreams and feelings of flying into the sun.