July of 2016 was sweltering.
I especially felt the heat after sitting in a taxicab for almost two hours, driving around Beijing, China with an equally sweaty cab driver trying to find a hockey rink somewhere in the city proper. I was on my way to the Little Wolf Hockey Club to interview members of the Boston Bruins, who were hosting two week-long hockey clinics in China, and I was completely lost in the city.
The taxi driver spoke no English, and I spoke no Mandarin,
and we were parked in the middle of a Chinese slum pointing vigorously at each
other and at the address of the club which had been translated for me into
Mandarin from English by one of my Beijing-born coworkers. But if the address
had been translated incorrectly, or the driver had no idea where we were
supposed to go, I had no idea. All I knew is that we were driving in circles,
following down potential paths but having those suddenly go up in smoke when
we’d reach a dead end.
It's been almost six years since that incident, but that
whole experience continues to resonate with me. I am 26 years old, and I still
have that feeling of being hopelessly lost and trying to chase down potential –
yet perpetually doomed – paths to find happiness. There’s a part of me that
believes in order to achieve what you want out of life; you have to have some
sort of personal identity. I know what I want out of life, but I’m struggling with
how best to achieve that life because I don’t know who I am. And because I
don’t know who I am, which will impede me from getting the life I want, I’m
terrified I will never be happy.
I know what I’m good at (communication, storytelling,
analyzation) and I know what my interests are (cooking and baking, watching
movies, reading books, playing sports, and crocheting). I know I’m a leader and
like taking control of situations, both personal and professional. I work well
under pressure and can meet deadlines. I love to learn, and I love to teach.
I’ve been a journalist since 2014, and since leaving college I’ve worked
professionally at two different papers in two different states. But working as
a professional journalist has made me realize I don’t want to remain in this
business for the rest of my life even though I’m a rabid advocate about media
rights and honesty and integrity in news media. Working as a professional
journalist made me a more mature, responsible person than I was before
graduating college and deciding to forsake the career that has shaped the last
eight years of my life makes me feel like I’m simultaneously maturing and
regressing.
My saving grace is my ability to adapt both mentally and
physically in order to meet my new goals. Once I decided I was going back to
school to pursue my new career path, a career in media law, my body and my mind
turned on a dime to meet the new expectations the digital marketing certificate
program at LCCC demands. My full-time job has me working from 4 p.m. to almost
midnight five days out of the week, and I’ve been thus far able to go home, get
a decent amount of sleep, and wake up at 7:30 a.m. or so to get ready for class
after spending almost a year sleeping until around noon. I’m able to draw on my
previous collegiate experience to know what kinds of demands will be made of me
by my professors, and what kinds of demands I will make of myself, to succeed
in this program. Although I still have no idea who I am, this past month has
made me feel like I’m a little closer to figuring that out. I’ve felt certain
and focused and determined – all verbs and adjectives that give me comfort –
and there’s a type of finality radiating through my body that assuages concerns
I have that I’m not doing the right thing with my life.
I spent almost two hours in a cab trying to find a hockey
club next to a man with whom I couldn’t communicate because of a language
barrier. Eventually, like bringing a fuzzy picture back into sharp clarity, we made
sense of the directions, and those bone-deep vibrations of rightness of
traveling on the correct route is how I feel right now. The relief I felt – a
complete, full-body relaxation – when I finally stepped into the cool building of
the Chinese hockey club is the sensation I hope to have I when I know I’m where
I’m meant to be.
Hopefully, I’ll find out the person I’m meant to be in the process.
To read the article:
"Bruins grooming Chinese talent":
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