Independence Day
So today I cleaned out my desk and prepared to leave the first job I've had out of college. Feelings are funny. You expect to feel one thing when something big happens and then when you get there, you're not sure if you're feeling that yet. I had expected today to a mix of excitement, relief, sadness, and wistfulness. Instead, I've found myself laughing for much of the day, which, at this job, in this place, I've found myself doing for most of the two years that I've been here. I think my one big fear is that I'll come to a place when I don't have great friends around to laugh with. I mean, even moving around a lot since high school, I've always been able to find laughter. Not because I'm particularly funny -- I don't really think I am even. But because God has put these funny, wonderful people on my highway. And I've been put on theirs. And all I can offer them is optimism and a sense of humor in exchange for the wonderfully funny things they offer me.
Two years ago, I came to Houston and it was just a name on a map, a name with a bad reputation perhaps. Now, as I leave, I think it's one of the happiest places I've ever lived. I started at this newspaper and I was scared senseless. I didn't eat well my first few weeks, because of the nerves alone. I cried my first night after work. I was terrified of doing what you do in journalism. I was terrified of making a bad mistake in front of 110,000 people. Now I'm not so terrified. And I laugh a lot.
I love this town. I've loved this job. I love this newspaper. If my heart was divided up, a big part of it would be filed under "Houston Press."
As I cleaned up and tossed out the old papers lying around this cube, the old trinkets from leftover stories, I came across an old Nick Hornby column in the Times. "Youth is a quality not unlike health: it's found in greater abundance among the young, but we all need access to it. I'm not talking about the accouterments of youth: the unlined faces, the washboard stomachs, the hair. The young are welcome to all that -- what would we do with it anyway? I'm talking about the energy, the wistful yearning, the inexplicable exhilaration, the sporadic sense of invincibility, the hope that stings like chlorine. When I was younger, rock music articulated these feelings, and now that I'm older it stimulates them, but either way, rock 'n' roll was and remains necessary because: who doesn't need exhilaration and a sense of invincibility, even if it's only now and again?"
I liked how he put that about youth, because a lot of us who read and write this blog are beginning to find ourselves at an age where that inexplicable exhilaration is slipping away and in its place, a calmness. There are advantages to both and even if there weren't, it's the natural course of things.
I'm not sure what it's going to feel like to walk out the door one last time. I could guess, but I'll really just have to do it and then know. Hopefully they'll be laughter on the other side. But, God, I'm going to miss this place.
Two years ago, I came to Houston and it was just a name on a map, a name with a bad reputation perhaps. Now, as I leave, I think it's one of the happiest places I've ever lived. I started at this newspaper and I was scared senseless. I didn't eat well my first few weeks, because of the nerves alone. I cried my first night after work. I was terrified of doing what you do in journalism. I was terrified of making a bad mistake in front of 110,000 people. Now I'm not so terrified. And I laugh a lot.
I love this town. I've loved this job. I love this newspaper. If my heart was divided up, a big part of it would be filed under "Houston Press."
As I cleaned up and tossed out the old papers lying around this cube, the old trinkets from leftover stories, I came across an old Nick Hornby column in the Times. "Youth is a quality not unlike health: it's found in greater abundance among the young, but we all need access to it. I'm not talking about the accouterments of youth: the unlined faces, the washboard stomachs, the hair. The young are welcome to all that -- what would we do with it anyway? I'm talking about the energy, the wistful yearning, the inexplicable exhilaration, the sporadic sense of invincibility, the hope that stings like chlorine. When I was younger, rock music articulated these feelings, and now that I'm older it stimulates them, but either way, rock 'n' roll was and remains necessary because: who doesn't need exhilaration and a sense of invincibility, even if it's only now and again?"
I liked how he put that about youth, because a lot of us who read and write this blog are beginning to find ourselves at an age where that inexplicable exhilaration is slipping away and in its place, a calmness. There are advantages to both and even if there weren't, it's the natural course of things.
I'm not sure what it's going to feel like to walk out the door one last time. I could guess, but I'll really just have to do it and then know. Hopefully they'll be laughter on the other side. But, God, I'm going to miss this place.
posted by Aden at 1:17 PM
2 Comments:
Ah, yes, moving about. Alas the seasons change and it's time to yank the photo of the NYC homeless guy off the wall, untack that Cambodian flag, and pull the ragged pair of blue jeans off the wall. Collect a few soccer jerseys and that snap button beauty with the unicorns and head north. Paisan, you're like a Maori tribesman. Few posessions, and no trace of having been anywhere. How do you do it?
Yet despite your nomadic predisposition you do indeed manage to run with a fucking brilliant crowd. The Null's and Malisow's are few and far between and I hope one or both of those boys can make it to Tucson someday.
-Aden
We've started amassing a tribe of travellers, a new movement in thoughts and ideas. Tucson most certainly is on the top of my list, and I am honored to have been extended such an invite. Houston is open to all as well, for a night, for a lifetime (isn't that the slogan for Niagara Falls)?
But seriously, Houston, and myself most definitely, lament the loss of both Mike and Julia. So much of what I wanted to get done actually got done with these two present, and I hold dear the time we shared. This is not to say it is the end, either, as the party has only been loosed from its mooring, and now will bounce all around the States, and the world. Three Cheers to Mike and Julia, next year's nominee for "Houston's Best Neighbors."
-Cory
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