The Best (and Worst) Compliment

One of the best compliments I ever received came from my professor and advisor in the St. Cloud State University Mass Communications program. He and I and a couple of other students were at a bar. I think it was after some sort of event on campus where a professional journalist came to speak at our university. He said, "One day we'll all be saying we knew you when."

He probably had a couple of drinks in him by then and he probably doesn't remember saying it, but since the compliment came from someone I admired, it stuck in my head. What a great endorsement! What a curse! How do you possibly live up to something like that?

And 11 or 12 years later, every time I write a story that I think turned out really well or win an award or hear from a source about something I wrote, I think, "There you go. That's what he meant." But then there are the times when I'm struggling with a story or an article doesn't turn out as well as I'd hoped and I feel unworthy.

I earned bachelors' degrees in English with a writing emphasis and Mass Communications with an editorial emphasis. I wanted to be a writer, a real journalist -- the kind who uncovers fraud or tracks criminal cases. If not that, I wanted to be a newspaper columnist in the metro section, giving my opinion about issues under discussion at city hall or highlighting interesting people in the community. I always thought it would be fun to have a day-in-the-life column for which I'd follow people around at work and report my observations about their jobs.

Eleven and a half years later, I still don't really know what kind of a writer I want to be, other than a good one. Will I always be a journalist? I don't know. Will I ever write a book? I never thought I would, but now I feel like it's not completely out of the question. I mean, after resisting online forums, I now regular check Facebook and post random comments. And, I started this blog. I even have a Twitter account, though I never use it. Don't try to talk to me through Twitter, by the way, because you'll never get a tweet back. There are only so many hours in the day.

Speaking of time and the limits of it, I've now spent three hours writing this post, because I've also been cooking dinner, eating dinner, writing out a few last Christmas cards and reading books to my son before bed. Now I'm tired and I want to work on another project before I get too tired to write a coherent sentence. Maybe if I multi-task and write enough different things, I'll come up with something that makes me feel like I'm living up to that tough standard my former professor set for me a long time ago.