Hands down, without a doubt, the hardest part about not working for the celebrity glossies anymore is Monday.

Anyone in the biz might think I’m crazy for saying that, right? Mondays usually mean early mornings coupled with late (sometimes very late) nights, stories that change all day long up until the very last minute, unreliable sources that go cold and rabid publicists who are freaking out about what we plan to print about their usually guilty clients.

But the reason I got into the celebrity gossip industry to begin with was because I thrive on chaos and deadlines and the excitement. The part that seemed awful to many was actually quite a rush for me.

It was always like being a part of this little club, one that you only really understood if you lived it. Sure, people work stressful jobs with ridiculous hours all of the time. Investment banker, anyone? On-call doctor? But there was something different about being a tabloid reporter and editor, at least to me. I worked for 2 years as an auditor at Arthur Andersen – and was miserable the entire time. I was never, ever happy about staying late to tick some more Excel spreadsheets with red pencil.

But during my years with In Touch, and later Star, even the worst days were fun in a way. Don’t get me wrong – sometimes it totally sucked, like whenever I had planned to go to dinner with friends at 9 pm or meet up with someone for drinks and had to call to cancel because my pages still hadn’t gone to copy. And when I finally departed from the industry, I was relived at first not to get midnight phone calls from the fact checkers. But now, months and months after moving on, I realize how much I miss it.

I loved being front and center for the drama. It’s often vapid bullshit, but lots and lots of people really like reading these magazines and being a part of creating it was a blast. Doors would slam, new photos would come in and change everything at the 11th hour – Angelina’s very staged trip to the beach in Africa with Brad and Maddox comes to mind – and lawyer letters would show up. It was a little dangerous – and a lot of fun.

Of course, my days living between NYC and Delray Beach are now super relaxing, filled mostly with practicing and teaching yoga while helping people fix their diets and their health. I must admit, it’s a lot more personally and spiritually rewarding than revealing when and where Britney’s secret wedding will take place. But, sometimes, on Mondays I feel a pang of jealousy for now being an outsider to the secret club.

We really never know how good we have it till it’s over, do we? I suppose the grass really is always greener…