What happens when you spend years chasing a career, only to realize you're ready for something different?
For as long as I can remember, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a sports reporter. I didn't just casually like the idea of working in television. I talked about it constantly. I went to school for it, worked toward it, and built so much of my identity around the idea that one day I'd be standing on the sidelines with a microphone, talking to athletes, telling stories, and somehow getting paid to do something I'd wanted for so long. For a long time, I couldn't imagine wanting anything else.
So when I decided to leave news, the hardest part wasn't actually leaving. It was telling everyone. There is something incredibly uncomfortable about having to say, “I'm not doing this anymore,” when you've spent years telling everyone that this is exactly what you're going to do. I felt like I had to explain myself to friends, family, and even people I hadn't talked to in years who still knew me as the girl who wanted to be a sports reporter. And honestly, it felt a little like admitting that I had failed.
But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that changing direction isn't the same thing as failing. I still love television. I still love storytelling. I still love sports. I still love the feeling of creating something and knowing that other people are going to see it. I'm just not sure I want to spend my life doing it in the way I once imagined.
Now I'm 24, living in Orlando, and teaching television production to high school students, which is funny when I really think about it. I spent years trying to become the person on television, and now I'm teaching the next generation how to make it. It's a completely different version of the career I imagined for myself, but maybe it's not as far away from that dream as I initially thought.
I don't know what comes next, and for someone who has always had a very specific answer to the question “What do you want to do?” that's a strange place to be. But maybe that's what your twenties are for. Trying things, outgrowing things, changing your mind, and realizing that just because something was once your dream doesn't mean you have to spend the rest of your life proving that it still is.
