Cut and run

It’s been three months since I started at The Examiner. Sometimes it feels like a lot longer – I don’t need help changing film anymore, I can joke about which reporters write long. Still, I find myself asking questions whose answers are left to time and experience – “Which school district is Franklin Ridge Elementary?” or “Is that the mayor, there with the moustache?” I’m learning.

I haven’t written much since I left Columbia to come here. Practically, we just got internet at our house last week. Personally, it’s a bit more complicated.

For reasons both deeply personal and purely professional, I began to look for a way out in early June. It’s no secret that I had grown dissatisfied with the work I was doing at the radio station.  While I will always love public radio, I felt the time had come where I could grow no further at KBIA.  It didn’t make sense to do my professional project at a place that offered me little chance of real development.

And then there’s the other reason, the real reason: the end of the relationship that I had very much bet my future against.  I’m not saying it’s a good reason to go.  But I don’t regret taking the leap.

Because let’s be honest, I never anticipated the opportunity.

I don’t like to admit that sometimes I do things out of spite – but I’m only human.  Threatening to pack my bags seemed like the way to go. I didn’t expect to get a nibble, much less an offer, in this economy. But I did (three, in fact), and I don’t regret taking one.

I don’t love my job.  I’d be lying if I said I did.  I hate the hours, and the work I do is often less than fascinating.  But I like having a purpose in life, and I like my coworkers, and I believe in community journalism.  And let’s face it, I could have done much worse for myself.  I have friends – not just from the class of 2010, but the class of 2009 as well – who still haven’t found steady work in their field.  Then there’s our new assistant sports editor, who’s put five years into getting where he’s at.  I won’t be at The Examiner forever.  But wherever I go next will benefit from the experience.

The choices we make define us, but I’m not ashamed to admit that this time I ran.  I stayed to get my Masters for all the wrong reasons – a different boy, the same old story.  And I left, hastily, for reasons much the same.  But here’s what those bad decisions have given me: a chance to make it on my own, and a chance to return when the time is right.

I have seven years to finish my degree.  I figure that gives me a year, maybe two, before I have to start thinking seriously about going back.  In the mean time, I’m going to enjoy my time away and what I can learn about myself – and the biz – in the process.