I didn’t kill myself for three reasons.
The first reason was I was too chickenshit. I was afraid of being unsuccessful. I was afraid it might not be pleasant to die.
The second reason was my two remaining friends, Dustin and Kathy. Dustin’s grandmother died earlier that year and he was taking it hard. It would suck to make things worse for him. Kathy and I had been best friends since the fourth grade. Now we were long-distance BFFs because her mom moved her to L.A. Things were very bad for both of us, so we made a life pact—the opposite of a suicide pact. But still, there were times I thought Dustin and Kathy didn’t really care about me anyway. You’ll get over it, I wrote in their farewell letters. You’ll think of me when you see a nice sunset sometimes, but you’ll move on.
The third reason was journalism.
I joined the school newspaper my junior year. My journalism teacher took a liking to me, which made me feel special, because he was a crotchety, nitpicky man who was rarely satisfied with anything. In the winter, while everyone else was laying out copy, he summoned me to his desk and told me I had a “biting sense of humor.” He asked me to read a bunch of Dave Barry columns, then sat down with me to dissect their structure and technique. He coached me through several satirical columns criticizing the school administration. My senior year, he named me editor in chief. In my diary that day, I wrote with no joy, just relief, Thank god, I got EIC so I don’t have to kill myself anymore.
By mid-senior year, I wrote two monthly columns: my editor’s letter for the school newspaper and a Teen Scene column for the local weekly, where I was ostensibly an intern, though I often wrote front-page stories. In these stories, I reported on a huge financial scandal in my school district, where the district lost millions of dollars in funding.
The Mercury News in San Jose didn’t cover the scandal. The San Francisco Chronicle wouldn’t touch it. I was the only reporter on the case. I went to every budget meeting, took furious notes, and recorded dozens of interviews with teachers and parents and students and dodgy district leaders and the superintendent. And after everyone left, I approached the speaker’s table and grabbed all the untouched El Pollo Loco meals the district catered for the board members. In my car, I shoveled multiple meals into my mouth, getting shredded lettuce all over the seat. I didn’t worry too much about fat content because this was the only thing I’d eat for a couple of days.
On those meeting nights, I would get home at nine p.m., then I’d sit down to write my coverage for my two papers—an article with a focus on the teacher’s union for my school newspaper and a restrained, skeptical version for the conservative weekly. Then I started on my math, physics, and English homework. At six a.m., I drove to school, where I sat through quizzes and worksheets and petty dramas, and at the end of the day, I started on my editorial duties—doing a full edit of the layout designs, reminding Maddie to reel it in with the cutesy clip art, sending Jenny back for a second pass. I returned home at six p.m., crashed hard in my bed, woke up at midnight, and started my homework, working until six a.m.
This was how I discovered the power of journalism—not just as a force to right wrongs and change the world, but as a force that turned my anguished brain into a functioning machine. I liked many things about journalism. I liked that it was one thing people thought I was good at. I liked that it gave me a reason to go out into the world, like an explorer heading into the jungle to collect specimens. And I liked that journalism was a puzzle. You lay out your evidence and order it from most important to least, the inverted pyramid a force against woeful attention spans and chaos. I could take feelings and injustices and even tragedies and figure out a way to shape them all into something purposeful. Something controlled.
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On weekends, when the work was done and I had no more deadlines, I struggled mightily. I was never invited anywhere; I would have been a downer anyway. I lost the ability to speak to anyone without the purpose of an article and a script of meticulously planned questions. Instead, I watched marathons of Six Feet Under and Sex and the City. I drove to thrift stores and altered the clothing I found with supplies I shoplifted from Michaels, turning sweater sleeves into leg warmers and scarves into belts. And my mind unraveled. I heard noises. Fantasized about death and cried myself to sleep. But when I woke up, it was Monday, and thankfully there was more work to be done.
It was journalism that gave me my first portfolio—a marker of value. It was journalism, particularly my editor in chief position, that got me into the University of California, Santa Cruz, even though I had a miserable 2.9 GPA. And it was journalism that got me to my high school graduation stage.
The event was held at the massive stadium downtown, thousands of parents and family members roaring facelessly around us. My father was not one of them.
Everyone was giddy in their caps and gowns. We were already nostalgic, and that made us generous, hugging old friends and tearfully forgiving our nemeses. But my eyes remained dry. I heard other kids saying, “Hell, yeah! We made it, we survived!” For me, that feeling was literal. I shouldn’t even be here, I mused, dazed, as I watched my classmates smile on the Jumbotron overhead. I should be dead.
Then, as we filed out of the stadium, my wacky freshman-year English teacher ran up to me and handed over an envelope. In it was a letter she’d had us write to ourselves on our very first day of high school.
My handwriting had been more childish as a freshman. The letter was written on Hot Topic notebook paper with a skull embossed on the page. It read: That’s a nice diploma you’ve got there. You’re welcome. Lenore #8. System of a Down. Terrorist Attacks. You probably haven’t thought about this shit in years (or yesterday. Whatever.) Well, however you are now, whoever you are—you’re a better, smarter, more uh…mature (snicker) person than you were now. You’ve come a long way since 4 years ago, and for better or worse, I’m proud of ya.
Finally, the tears came. It didn’t matter if my parents were proud of me. I was proud of me, and that was the most important thing. Because I had done this. I’d gotten myself here with my own hard work.
CHAPTER 7
Achievement was my constant. My comfort. In college, I edited the humor paper, freelanced and interned for national magazines before I turned nineteen, taught classes on gender and religion as a junior, then graduated in only two and a half years, decorated with honors. I graduated early because I wanted to begin my work as a journalist. What was the point of going to classes about literary theory when I knew what I wanted and already possessed the skills for it?