that 18 year old

In my first year of school we used to have ‘reporting’ days. Days we had to head out at 9 am and have a news story written before 5 pm. I was never great at this find-a-story business. I did graduate, so I must have come up with enough to pass but I hated that feeling of being alone with my notepad looking for something to happen.

The thing is, I was just 19. The whole world was new and I was a just a kid looking for something to write about. I was too young to know anything much less write about anything. Naïveté is not a good starting point for a newspaperwoman.

It did get better and eventually I could call anyone about anything. I still can. It comes in handy.

J-school also knocked me out of my suburban teengirl mindset. It also solidified my love of news. I still am very much a news junkie. But I’m not a jounalist.

And that’s ok, I like reading the news more than I ever liked looking for it. But I still could have ended up doing that. As it turned out, the recession ended up deciding for me. There were few jobs and I ended up going back to school. It turned out fine. I’m happy to be in a career I enjoy.

But sometimes I think: what business did that 18 year old have deciding what I was going to be doing with my adult life? I could have studied so many other things. But the things is, I had no idea what other things I was interested in until much later.

That 18 year old was pretty boring and not very daring. I am so glad those years are behind me. Getting older is good.

I am braver now.