The only journey is the one within

My new big adventure and moving toward the next thing we choose for ourselves, part 2.

Happy to be in nature, circa 1980. My brother Eric and me at the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Hello! Please note if you missed part one of this two-part series, you can read it here.

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The first time I scrambled to string sentences together for a front page story, I’d rushed through downtown—literally ran three city blocks, the slap slap slap of my sandaled feet on the sidewalk filling the quieted late-night streets—to reach the newsroom and sit behind the green-screened computer where I would file my piece. 

It was a sticky-hot July night, nearly time to put the daily paper to bed, and my article would break the news not of a fire or critical public meeting or another dire happening but of a newly crowned National Cherry Queen. My interview with the beautiful and surprised young woman, coupled with a comment from her smiling predecessor, would be the short story just below the fold, placed alongside a photo of the coronation on this final night of the city’s long-standing weeklong festival celebrating the fruit for which this part of northern Michigan is known.

It was 1994 and I was 19 years old, a student studying journalism at Michigan State and thrilled to have the chance to write actual articles—with a byline!—as a summer intern for my local paper. By the end of those 15 weeks, having interviewed countless people in the city and surrounding counties for feature and news stories including that front-page one, my career plans had solidified: I would most definitely become a daily newspaper reporter, preferably one who covered breaking news. A queen coronation would lead to other, bigger breaking news, at larger, well-known daily newspapers. The stress and excitement of typing fast and furiously, the exhilaration of meeting a tight deadline and seeing my work in print, not to mention the camaraderie and buzz of a newsroom … it all felt like home.

What I wouldn’t know then, what none of us can know when we’re just starting out, is just how right I’d be about how I would begin my career—and how I’d also veer on and off that journalist path multiple times, finding entirely new writing routes to explore as the years passed.

Solid proof: here I am today, nearly 30 years later, about to follow another new direction. I want to stop myself from saying cliches like coming full circle and returning to my roots. These don’t exactly or fully describe what’s next for me anyway. Still, they’re not entirely off base either. This move feels like an especially big and meaningful one. Something I’d hoped could happen, even if I couldn’t have imagined this particular adventure even if I’d tried.

I recently listened to an episode of the excellent podcast Work Appropriate about the ebb and flow of work and specifically writing. I listened while running and found myself nodding numerous times as host

Anne Helen Petersen

and her guest Jennifer Romolini talked about life’s different acts—the many professional hats we’ll wear and creative pursuits we’ll have throughout our lives.

“There are so many other things you just have not uncovered yet,” Romolini, a just-turned 50-year-old writer, podcaster, and longtime journalist, shared at one point. “Think of it as a scavenger hunt—you’re uncovering what you’re going to want next. And each place you go is going to give you another clue.”

I’ve been collecting clues for a long while now. What I’ve realized is that even those times when I questioned deeply where I’d ended up—hello, corporate office 9-to-5 jobs—I’ve taken something of value from each experience. Some of these lessons proved painful even while being necessary at the time, and during these instances in particular I became clear on what I did not want for myself long-term. I discovered parts and pieces that did work for me, too, as I learned new skills and sharpened older ones. I got closer each time to not only recognizing what I ultimately wanted but how I could possibly make a different future happen.