Confessions of a tomboy

My three older sisters always tease that I was my parent’s last chance at a boy. As a failure from the beginning, I had a lot of ground to cover. I became a true tomboy to compensate. I was ready for life, at age 10, equipped with flint and steel, a B.B. gun and a rusted pocketknife (a tetanus shot soon followed). A sense of independence, personal strength and toughness was born in me from running wild through 40 acres of alfalfa fields.

This is my story, or at least the one I use to explain why I care less about fashion than a housecoat-wearing recluse and why I refused to let the cute boy across the hall help me move a couch into my apartment this summer. Most recently, I have been using this story to explain why I am unflinchingly pursuing a career in print journalism. It seems to work for employers who see tenacity and dedication in these stories.

It doesn’t, however, seem to work on my boyfriend. He laughs at these essays that portray a box of venomous feminism ready to unseat the social injustices in the world. He laughs, not because he hasn’t been bitten by my tirades or witnessed my dedication to reporting but because he is close enough to see my other side.

This side of me, the one that wants to have lots of babies and live close to my sisters, comes creeping out when I feel safe. My three sisters are all married and all have children. My oldest sister, 34, is due to deliver twins on the day I graduate. I can imagine sharing recipes with my sisters, carpooling our kids to soccer practices and waiting for a wonderful father and husband to come home from work.

Here in lies my dichotomy. Can a woman have both? Most acquaintances have probably heard me quip that I will never get married, but most friends know better. I want to travel. I want to live in dangerous locations where journalists seldom go, a place where my writing serves a greater good. I want to influence policy, open eyes, make the world a better place. Can I hear my internal clock ticking just thinking about this? No, sorry, that’s just the sound of my heart breaking.

The most frightening aspect of this internal debate is that both paths are available. Post-graduation, I could throw all of my efforts towards becoming a foreign correspondent or towards uncovering corruption in Washington. I could also hang around Missouri for another year and a half until my perfectly supportive, intelligent, driven boyfriend completes his MBA.

I understand of course that this isn’t an all or nothing decision, but at this turning point in my life, it certainly seems that way.

Thus far in my essay, I have ignored the complication that even I at times question my loyalty to journalism. Does the fourth estate still exist as an influential element of democracy? Am I willingly accepting a life without the comforts of an expendable income in pursuit of an ideal that is dead? This question flashes through my mind only briefly, but I immediately dispel the hypothetical. The ideal can’t die unless no one pursues it. Even if I am the last person rejecting the corporate-revenue-based definition of journalism, the ideal will still be alive. Someone needs to lead the revolution. And I am willing.

Whether or not I am capable is another question.

To be perfectly honest, journalism became my passion in high school because calculus and chemistry were too easy. The real challenge was language arts. I read Fitzgerald and Ondaatje in utter amazement at their command of language. If only I could grasp some of their talent, then I too could touch the world. The only hitch in my plan: I sucked.

Writing didn’t come easily to me. No one ever told me I was good. Math and science were no problem; I don’t think I even studied, but I would stay up all night perfecting my English papers.

Mrs. Thompson taught AP English and she was the most challenging teacher I have ever had (that should say something about the level of instruction here at Mizzou, but that’s another essay). She underlined excellent writing in gold. I coveted the “golden sentence,” but my papers were returned with nothing but red ink. It’s the challenge that drew me to journalism not my natural ability.

If I needed conformation of my decision to forgo studying science it came at a Body Worlds exhibit in Denver last summer. The anatomy and physiology of the human body was incredible, but more than anything I wanted to know the stories behind the bodies. Who were they? How did their families feel about the decision? I wanted to write their stories.

Despite my struggles with writing I have been able to work my way to a fairly strong clip base. An internship this summer in Missouri will allow me to delay my “hanging around dilemma,” and allow me to pursue both lives simultaneously. At some point I will, however, have to make the decision of where my priorities lie. Will I stay true to the little girl who constructed forts in the wilderness and made girls cry on the soccer field? Will I become the next Jessica Stern traipsing into the Middle East to foster an understanding of religious fundamentalism?

The wonderful news is that I am completely unafraid of either path. I must merely decide where I am headed and then run in that direction. The stories that define me have never confined me, nor will I allow them to.