Notes from a previous life

I was digging through old papers this weekend. Stuff that for whatever reason I kept in plain site in my bedroom, but haven't looked at in years. In addition to the notes and cards from old friends and family, notebooks from some of my favorite college classes (almost 15 years ago...), and even pay stubs from my first jobs in high school ($5.50/hour!), I found my binder from the 2004 National Writers' Conference.

My bosses at the time paid for me to attend, and I loved it. It was in Seattle so I got to travel to the city, and I also had a chance to spend time with fellow journalists. At the time, I was the only reporter for my paper. The only other reporters I had contact with were direct competitors and I always felt funny socializing with them (a mix of loyalty to my editors and strange competitiveness).

A part of me loved (and loves) reporting. It's important work, and to hear successful people talk about your craft while surrounded by people love it as much or more is a great thing. 

Journalism (especially newspaper journalism) has changed so much in the decade since that conference. I left newpapering before the really intense layoffs and it's possible I wouldn't have gone back into it even if publications weren't slashing staff. But looking through my notes from different talks got my heart pumping again.

It's hard for me to think or write about journalism without all these qualifications about myself ('I'm not aggressive enough' 'I'm not devoted enough' 'I'm too naive'), but I did like it. And if I'm honest with myself I think one of the things I was put on this earth to do was to tell people's stories.

It made me feel good to take some of my notes and type them up - another step in the process of not losing these moments and thoughts forever. These are taken from various talks from different people. Unfortunately, I wasn't always great about noting which thoughts were from which speaker.

  "I want you to wake up every morning and remember what it is indispensable to your town, your state, your country, and your world."

"If you don't get the job of your dreams, so what? You can learn anywhere."

"Leads are everything."

"Connecting with readers, with humanity of the utmost importance"

"Journalism with spirit"

"Outrage them, make them laugh, cry, or throw up."

"To write stories you have to feel them. ... Bleed all over a piece of newsprint."

"Reported and wrote and felt and wrote."

"Displaying your sickness and soreness to the world in the hopes that someone will make you better." (unfortunately, I didn't make a note and I don't remember what this was in reference to, but the line immediately following this is the name of another newspaper reporter with lots of interesting and inspiring thoughts about the profession, Jacqui Banaszynski.)

Writing

What has writing done for me? Not reading others' writing, but the act of creating my own writing. It's an extremely pretentious question, and as someone who has never been published (never attempted to be published) outside of small newspapers, I haven't earned that pretension. I'm not a disciplined or regular or even very talented writer. Aside from the odd journal entry, I haven't written consistently in almost eight years. But I'm hurting. I hurt myself. I tell myself that I'm boring, unloveable, that I had potential but that I swandered the opportunity/ities to be the person who I want to be, that there's a certain kind of ideal but that those who embody that ideal got to know me and found me wanting. I have a vision of myself in my head and it's the worst possible version of who I could possibly be.

But if nothing else, writing - my writing - has shown me myself, at least a little. Reading through old entries, I like who I see - I like the thoughts I had, the experiences I had and the way I expressed them. I am smart. I am compassionate. I am thoughtful and caring. I like the person who wrote these entries. I put myself in situations to experience the world. Those aren't things that I imagined or pretended. Those are experiences that helped shape who I am and, if I choose, I can do that again.

My life now is comfortable in a lot of ways, but also extremely uncomfortable. I make a steady income (something I know not to take for granted), I live in a safe place, I'm close to family - life is, for the most part, steady...predictable. There are good things about this.

There are also bad things, if you're not careful. It's easy to stop challenging yourself and asking yourself what you really want. How can I challenge myself?