the navel times and observer

Today when I went ahead and called to thank the Lebanon Daily Record for their time and the interview I got a bit of a surprise: An offer.

So, for $500 more than I'm making right now I could go to Lebanon and write about, well, that has yet to be determined, and help edit and design the newspaper on Fridays and Saturdays. This would significantly adjust my weekend schedule from a Saturday-Sunday weekend to a Sunday-Monday weekend. No big loss there and my Saturday shifts start about 2 p.m., which gives me time to sleep in.

Thing is, I'm not particularly sure I want to leave Joplin. Now, if you asked me this morning what I'd like to do if given the option I'd have probably accepted. Probably for lack of sleep (I'd hate to think I'm no longer capable of faking being a morning person) I would have told you what I felt. I didn't want to go to work today and I wasn't particularly confident I would make it to the end of another work day. Well, we made it to the end of another work day, It wasn't too terrible and I finished my stories, though unfortunately two editors have since called to either add things or answer questions in the story.

But even with that last sinker of an addition the day didn't go badly. I could use more days like that and its days like that which make me think that I might actually be able to make it here at the Globe (*cue Mary Tyler Moore music). I also don't want to leave because I feel like I've been given a hell of an opportunity to really make something for myself when a professor stepped in this summer and hooked me up with the interview that got me this job.

It's an opportunity I'm not ready to just let slip away.

Which is not to say I lied when I told the Daily Record I wanted somewhere where I felt comfortable to begin building up for a bigger career. I don't feel confident at the Globe. I've called friends and loved ones in tears sometimes because I've been stressed out over small errors after being warned about my corrections. I obsess over my stories and it's no secret because most of the time I feel like I'm not far from getting thrown out on my rear. I mean the Globe's fired someone in the time I've been here, sorta casts a real dour light on things.

I'm also pretty lonely down here, I don't have friends in Joplin outside of my coworkers and I'm not very close to even them. That would be one thing nicer about Lebanon, it's half an hour from my grandparents, 50 minutes from Springfield, closer to St. Louis and only 2 hours from Columbia.

I dunno, I'm really not sure what I'm going to do but it's nice to know there's another door open, at least for the time being. I keep feeling like if I leave I'll regret something about having left Joplin. Like there was something in Joplin I just couldn't do, a goal I couldn't meet and leaving would be admitting that failure.

I mean it's not like I'd be leaving Joplin for bigger and better things. While the editing experience would be a new skill and a big step for me Lebanon is a small newspaper with a smaller market than the Globe. It's leaving an area (Joplin and its closest associated communities) of about 80,000 for a town of 12,000 people. A 7-day daily taking itself very seriously for a 6-day daily focusing intently on the local community.

Which is not to say I think Lebanon would be a permanent change. Not in the least. At the moment I still want to try to move on to bigger and more substantial papers. My aspirations do not include anything like the New York Times or the Washington Post (Lord knows I don't have a chance in hell of getting that far) but there are certainly smaller newspapers to consider that are in towns of even higher than Joplin's prominence on life's grand scale.

For all that I have in Joplin if I leave it would very likely be for good. Joplin's been good to me, it'd be absolutely miserably pitiful to have only worked anywhere only 7 months, but overall it's not a bad community. Really not a bad place to live and I'm glad I got to know it as well as I did. But it's not a market I can imagine really putting any effort into re-entering, though I feel like leaving the Globe on these terms there is a possibility that they might hire me back or at least I can count on them for recommendations.

Essentially I just don't know. My thoughts on my abilities to do this job change with the weather. Is that a way to live? Will I automatically be better when I get to Lebanon? I doubt it. How on Earth did I ever manage to convince two professional journalists to offer me jobs? Is there something else I should be doing? That thought scares me. Do I have the skills to do anything other than walk in a straight line? The thought has crossed my mind.