Lonely Hearts

As a college student, missing those back home is only natural. Usually two months can go by without seeing those from our past who’ve influenced so much who we’ve become. The ones who know us better than we know ourselves. The ones who love us, bad habits and all. Two months may seem like an eternity, especially to a new(ish) college student who has never spent more than two weeks away from home.

            But this year, I faced a challenge I saw coming but knew would be hard regardless of how I handled it.

            Missing the ones you love is one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world. Missing people doesn’t necessarily mean you are unhappy. In fact, for me, I am quite happy living out my dream. It is just a feeling I have to adjust to living with.

            Missing someone is hard to describe. I’ve never really had to miss anyone before. I always knew it wouldn’t be long before I saw them again. So dealing with this new emotion was like trying to navigate a new territory in the dark. Not impossible, but unpredictable and a little frightening.

            I had a teacher who had to describe the different levels of love to us for a religion class in high school. She said when you reach the level of true love, it is not “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” but rather “absence makes the heart ache.”

            What she meant was that you know love someone when you feel a certain pain when that person is gone. And while I may not be talking about the same kind of love she was talking about, I do know that I really love the people I am missing because I feel that certain kind of pain.

            Missing someone isn’t just wishing they were with you when you are doing something or thinking you need to tell them about something crazy that happened when you talk to them next.

            No, that feeling of missing someone hits you like a ton of bricks when you are riding the bus, or see a mother and her child smiling in the springtime sunshine or watching a father and son bonding over a baseball game or laughing about something you know that someone would find funny too.

            Missing loved ones makes you realize how empty you feel without them in your daily life. Their love fills you like the aroma of freshly baked cookies fills a kitchen. You don’t really notice when it’s not there until you smell it (or feel it) again. And then you realize how truly sweet it makes your life.

            Missing someone can cause their name to pop into your head when your mind wanders without control. “Mom.” “Dad.” “Jenna.” “Chelsea.” “Katie.” “Friends from home.” “Bridie and Bailey.”

            Missing someone is counting down the days until you see them again and looking forward to doing absolutely nothing except basking in the glow of their love.

Halfway done and halfway there

This week officially marks the halfway point of my co-op. It has been three months and I have three months left.

It’s hard to believe it was only three months ago I was first walking through the Globe’s doors with a fresh-faced ambition to do great things and to prove myself. I think I’m certainly on my way.

            One of the numerous tips I heard before going on co-op was to set goals for myself. And while I had some tangible goals, most of my goals were emotional or performance based.

            My greatest fear was that I was going to hate my job. But I’m happy to report, that I don’t hate it. In fact I really like my job. It is not a job anyone could do for the rest of her life, but it is a job that is satisfying, challenging and different enough for six months.

            Every time I can do a job well done on a project for my boss, I feel proud that I’ve worked hard enough to please the man upstairs. I am satisfied when I help a caller. I feel happy when I write a story that makes the people I’m writing about excited. And when I have the right answer I feel empowered to work harder.

            The challenges have been daily hurdles and behemoth sized monsters trying to get in the way of my success. The biggest challenge is probably fighting the boredom. Some days are just very slow with not much to do, and finding a productive and seemingly worthwhile way to spend that time can be difficult.

            Writing, surprisingly, has been my most frustrating challenge. Since I’m not writing everyday, or huge in-depth projects like I did for my journalism classes, my writing skills are slacking. I don’t feel I have a command of words like I used to. I think the fact that the stakes are a lot higher doesn’t help either. I am trying to improve and not get down on myself when editors take a hatchet to my stories. I’m trying to stay positive so I can take away something constructive rather than the feeling that I can’t do this.

            And now to mention the monsters. I have taken the Globe company car out to a few assignments here and there to cover various stories. The first Friday in March I took a Globe car out to a high school girls’ basketball game. As I was coming back at 9:30, the car stalled on the very busy freeway with nowhere to pull over. I pulled over in the far right lane as far as I could, but I was still blocking traffic. I called 911 who sent a tow truck who took me back to the Globe, but then demanded $100. The security office who was supposed to take care of it started yelling at me to find the money, but it was now ten o’clock on a Friday night and none of my bosses were there. Eventually, the head security officer paid the fee from an emergency fund and they sent me home in a cab.

The incident shook me up pretty good, but it also proved to me that I could handle a problem like an adult. Don’t get me wrong, I still cried, but not until the security office yelled at me, and I tried calling my parents, who were out of cell phone range in Nebraska. It was all on me to figure out what to do and how to solve the problem.

The next weekend my phone broke and caused a whole new set of problems. So back to a flip phone I went and onward I marched taking care of my upper middle class, white working girl problems.

So for the next three months, I want to tackle my problems with the same gumption I’ve been showing. I want to be the strong independent person I know I can be. I don’t really have any other options.

So I’m halfway done, but I’m also halfway there to gaining everything I can from this experience and learning a little more about myself.