10 years

 My Dad and I were in my house a while back. The conversation we had made me laugh.

What year were you in Emporia, he asked.

I thought for a minute. I moved back in 2011.  I moved there in 2010.

Then I asked him where I was 10 years ago.

Not Wichita, he said. That was 14 years ago. You were probably in Winfield, he said.

No. Not the school year 10 years ago. I mean the summer of that year 10 years ago.

Oh, he said. You were in Oklahoma City!

I never imagined myself playing a game of “I don’t remember what city I was in a number of years ago” with my family.

But life is life, and sometimes you just have to go with the flow and go wherever life takes you.

Ten years ago, I moved to Oklahoma City for a summer internship. I was determined to do it myself. I was 22, which is older than your average intern. In my mind, I was an adult, which meant that I could move myself to a city in a neighboring state without help from anyone else.

I couldn’t find my apartment. I drove around forever. It was raining, and I was crying. All the buildings looked the same to me, and all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and cry.

When I finally did find my apartment, I was really, really hungry, but I was too nervous to drive to get food and because I was afraid of getting lost again.

I should note that this was before the invention of iPhones, Siri and map apps. This was the dark ages, guys. This was 2007.

For the first night, I cried in my brand spankin’ new apartment because I was lost and hungry.

But at least I was an adult about it!

I cried many times that summer, mostly because of my own self-doubt. I never had to worry if anyone would catch the tears rolling down my face, because that summer it rained every single day, and you honestly couldn’t tell the difference between my tears and rain drops.

That makes me laugh now.

I talked about that summer with someone from work a while back. It turns out that many people experience the same thing that I did that summer.

It was the first time that I got paid for doing what I wanted to do. It was the first time I was surrounded by people who had the same passion that I did in life.

It was addicting. It was life-changing.

It turns out, if you’re really lucky in life, you get to experience what I did that summer.

The only thing that I really remember is that I had crippling self-doubt the entire time, both professionally and personally. On the way back from lunch one day, I caught the heel of my shoe in an elevator and tripped in front of a lot of people.

I was horrified at that incident. Actually, I was terrified and horrified the entire summer.

(Looking back now, I’m proud of myself that I was once young enough to wear heels. Now, they would probably kill me.)

Last summer, I tripped and fell in the middle of a street as my town’s annual parade was starting. Hundreds of people were there, and I fell flat on my face.

Some things never change.

One day, word got out that the floor above me had ordered donuts. I was too scared to get any. I shared that concern with another intern, and he told me he was too scared to get any, too.

It makes me laugh now, because donuts no longer scare me.

When I see summer interns now, I can spot them a mile away. I can smell their fear and I recognize their fresh baby faces. I wonder how some of them are even old enough to drive, because they look so young.

Oh, interns.

It makes me laugh, because I remember being that person.

There are several things I remember about that summer. At the time, I was self-conscious because I had spent five years in college. (That happens when you go to three different schools.)

Most of the interns were younger than me. Some weren’t even 21 yet. And here I was, old balls, at 22, and I had been drinking legally for more than a year.

Obviously, I was already well-seasoned at life. A veteran among babies, if you will.

I was talking about being on the 5-year plan to a full-time employee that summer. Her response was amazing.

“You’re more of a loser if you don’t finish,” she told me. “It doesn’t matter how you get there. You just have to finish.”

That summer, no one gave a crap about my age, or about how many years I spent in school. It didn’t matter then, and it turns out, that employee I was talking to was right.

It doesn’t matter now.

I think I’ll remember that advice forever.

It turns out that that particular city was not in the cards for me. I love it with all my heart, and I would probably go back in a heartbeat if money and life circumstances allowed me to (if I was married and made $200,000 a year…haha).

For now, I’m happy where I am in life. I’m thankful that God, or an alumnus at my alma mater, or whoever, gave me that experience of being totally lost, unsure of myself, but mostly just drunk a good amount of the time that summer.

I loved that experience. It was the first time that I realized that I could maybe do this thing for the rest of my life. It was the first time that I realized that I was in college for a reason, and the reason was going to eventually pay off one day.

I think Oklahoma City was my first love.

And just like your first real love, you never really forget it.

You move on and move away, but that first love is always a part of you.

And that’s okay.

Worth it.

I've always known I what I wanted to do.

When I was little, a family friend would clip out newspaper articles about things I liked and give them to me. In first or second grade, he gave me a story about a man who raised giant rabbits for a living.

I carried that article around in my pink crayon box for the longest time. I still remember the black and white picture beside the story. I remember reading every word in the story, amazed such giant rabbits existed.

More than that, 8-year-old Monica was amazed that some writer got to hang out with rabbits and rabbit people all day. (I had five rabbits when I was little, along with a bird, hedgehog, and multiple dogs. I've always liked animals.)

In high school, I knew I needed to go to college to do that thing I've always wanted to do. I went to college, then another college, then I knew I needed some work experience in my field, along with having a part-time job that actually made my car payment.

Two days a week, I worked at a retail store from 1 to 8 p.m., then went to my hometown newspaper to do sports clerk things until midnight, sometimes past that. Then I'd go home, sometimes do homework, then go to class at 8 a.m. the next day.

I remember thinking I couldn't wait for the day where I could do journalism full-time, and not have to fight with my schedule or with a boss in a part-time job or with anything else in life.

After one year too many and some pretty cool experiences along the way, I finally finished school. I was not a traditional student at a very traditional school. I didn't hate it, but to be honest, I robbed myself of having a traditional college experience.

That die-hard school pride that I see at universities kills my soul. I don't have that. (Part of this is because I transferred so many times, part is probably my personality.)

If I don't have that, what do I have?

I've been thinking about this recently. I always knew I had to go to college. I knew that I would graduate, but I didn't know what would come after that.

Six years post college, I have that figured out now. I always knew I would go to school, but I had no idea what that school would give me in return.

What has it given me?

It's given me a pretty amazing network of people that I still keep in touch with today.

It's also given me some pretty cool life experiences.

I've interviewed a Holocaust survivor.

I've interviewed people who were at the Pentagon on 9/11.

I've shot a gun with a field full of wounded soldiers behind me, all of whom were very vocal in telling me that I have a right to bear arms when I tried to shy out of shooting the gun.

I had no idea what college would give me, maybe because no one in my immediate family went to college. There was no path to follow, and most of the time, there was no advice given to me or wisdom along the way.

I was kind of just swimming around in life, sometimes panicking and starting to drown, and sometimes learning how to swim, but mostly just flailing around until I found something that kind of worked. I cringe when I think about this. College was just a lot of flailing around, trying to figure out what to do, making countless mistakes and acting like an idiot along the way.

I wasn't the world's best student. I wasn't the world's happiest student. And when I make those student loan payments every month, I wonder if it was even worth it, especially when I compare my life to the lives of friends my age who didn't go to college.

I've known this for a while now, but I don't think I've said it out loud or written it down anywhere.

Yeah, it was worth it.

I don't regret taking the messed up, not traditional route I took.

When I transferred schools the first time, I remember thinking that I just messed everything up, I would never amount to anything and that I was finished. I remember being really pissed off and hopeless.

When I left journalism in 2011, I remember thinking that I had screwed everything up, no one would hire me and that I would never amount to anything. There was absolutely not a single ounce of hope left in my body. Also, I was pretty pissed off that life didn't go the way I wanted it to.

Those were both really bad times.

Both of those times, my parents remained pretty adamant that my life wasn't as hopeless as it seemed in my head.

You went to school and finished, they said. You have things that other people don't have - a career and potential.

They were right.

(My 18-year-old self just let out a huge gasp for actually admitting that, by the way.)

College taught me that it's okay to leave a situation if you're not happy. It taught me that there's something better yet to come.

The best thing that college gave me is a network of people who don't believe in giving up.

I'll never have that die-hard, paint my face for football games love for my school. Instead, it's a more subtle kind of emotion.

It's more like a, meh, you're pretty okay after all kind of a feeling.

I know now that it was definitely worth it.