When The Moments Become Paramount

I remember the exact moment I decided I wanted to be a journalist. 

I watched Blood Diamond as an extra credit assignment as a freshman in college and felt like I would explode if I didn’t also get to be like Jennifer Connelly’s character Maddy and educate the world through my award-winning news coverage.

I don’t know how I didn’t smell the cliché dripping from the moment.

I also remember the exact moment I decided I could never be a journalist. 

I was a senior in college writing a news piece on something I don’t even remember and was bored out of my mind with the interview I was conducting, and then my interviewee said something about how our campus’ trolley driver had been driving the trolley for years, and I perked up because I was way more interested in a random trolley driver’s life story than whatever important news story I was covering. 

I found the trolley driver the next day, befriended him, wrote a lifestyle piece on him because he was so interesting, barely convinced my editor to print the piece (not because it was a poorly written piece but because he kept saying, “Is this really newsworthy?”), then went home and wrote three short stories based on random snippets of the trolley driver’s life and bits of advice he threw in that inspired me. 

I was happy with the piece I wrote about him for the paper, but I was really proud of the three short stories I wrote. 

I felt like I would explode if I didn’t get to people watch and get inspired by their lives and write my own stories.

I remember the moment I decided to cave and take a job with a newspaper even though I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do. 

But it seemed like I had to start out with a paper because that’s what my degree was in. 

I remember the moment I decided it didn’t matter how much money I was making. 

Or how my “career path” was going because I was miserable and just wanted to come home. 

I remember the moment I had a meltdown because I had been jobless for 7 months. 

And I didn’t know if anyone would ever hire me ever because I couldn’t sell myself well enough in an interview because I had no idea what I should be doing with my life.

I remember the moment I was offered a temp position with CUPA-HR. 

I was sitting in the parking lot of the library after having just checked out four new books to try and distract me from the fact that I was jobless for the eighth month in a row. My first day was covered in me being bright eyed and full of determination, thinking that if I could just get this company to love me and hire me full time, I would never ever leave them.

I remember the first time I ever cried at the thought of being at my job for the rest of my life. 

Not because it was the worst job in existence, not even the worst job I had ever had. But because it was a terrible fit for me. I could feel that this was not what I was supposed to be doing with my life. It didn't matter how good of a boss my boss was or how many friends I made at work or how they had a free gym for me to use. They could give me all the best health benefits or perks in the world (and believe me, they give their employees really really REALLY good benefits) I would still go home each night with feelings of craving, even if I wasn't sure what the craving was for. 

I remember the moment I knew Barnes and Noble would offer me the job. 

And the same moment when I knew I would take it, regardless of the massive pay cut or how it would look to others that I left a good job with a good company making good money and getting good benefits to take a part-time job at a bookstore making exactly half what I was making, all the while taking a pretty grand leap into thinking I could be my own boss and manage a freelance and writing career.
(Yes, that is my employee badge at the top, and I have been there now for three weeks and it feels like home more than any job I've ever had.) 

I remember the moment I let my cares about what people would think of my job path dissolve.

I remember the moment that I saw how everything was connecting and could connect, and how I was maybe taking steps to do what I was created to do.