Senior Column: I’m going to die of boredom here

For someone entering a career that involves factual reporting, telling lies is my favorite thing to do.

Well, technically, they aren’t lies, just pages upon pages of fiction writing. My personal Google Drive is filled to the brim with thoughts and ideas that have evolved into characters.

Even as a kid, I always had these characters swirling around me. When life got hard, I turned to my imagination for comfort. 

These characters have been through everything with me. Getting bullied in elementary and middle school, losing my grandma my senior year of high school, my first break up. You know, all the really important stepping stones in life. 

I’m not ashamed to say that for the majority of my childhood, my characters were my friends. Any thought I had, my characters had them too and vice versa. 

When I got to high school, there were these four that always kind of stuck around in my stories. My favorite to write about was modeled after me. Maybe that seems a little self-centered, but I don’t really care; she’s my character. 

She held the pain that I had been holding in for so long, said the things I would say if I had the confidence to do so, acted the way I would if I were brave enough. She even had the name I always chose when I played mermaids, Melanie. 

All things considered, despite the flaws we had, Melanie was the best. She still lives within me today. She’s been with me these past four years as I built my confidence in college, even if I put a pause on fiction writing. 

But before I could even create Melanie and take her with me to college, there was one other character I had built my personality around. And this one wasn’t my own. It was Sabrina Grimm from “The Sisters Grimm” book series. 

Now, she was a badass. She had this knack for sarcasm that I could only wish to emulate when I was 12 years old. She was the first young female character to teach me that I could have the strength to do anything. Thankfully, I didn’t follow in her footsteps by punching anyone, even though a few people almost pushed me to that point.

The summer before I went to college, I accomplished two feats. I wrote a full-length novel (Melanie was one of the four main characters, don’t worry), and I reread the entire “Sisters Grimm” series. 

Those things went hand in hand with each other because, while yes, Melanie was modeled after me, she also shared the same traits Sabrina had, because those traits had become embedded within me. 

The two of them live within each other and within me. And on the pages, the three of us melded together. 

When I finally went to college in August, I knew that those two would only live within me for a little bit, because I no longer had the time to write my stories as often. 

So, like Sabrina, I thought I was going to die of boredom at Bradley. Who was I without my writing?

Thankfully, I figured it out. I joined The Scout and realized I was actually pretty good at journalism. Thank goodness, or else my major would be all for nothing. 

I found comfort in reporting and soon found it in broadcast journalism as well. There’s something exhilarating about being the first to know the news before anyone else does. 

Through my self-discovery, I met people who would soon become some of my favorite people to be around. Those people were the current Scout staff. 

I would laugh with them well into the night, just like I wrote about in my stories. We would share secrets that would make all of us swear never to let it leave the walls of the office. 

For once, I didn’t need my characters to be there with me. These people filled the space that my writing once did. But don’t get it twisted, I still found time to write. Only this time it was for fun, not for comfort. 

Sorry to tell you this Sabrina, but just like you didn’t die of boredom in Ferryport Landing, I didn’t die of boredom at Bradley. We both found who we were meant to be.

Oh, and keep an eye on bookshelves in the future. You might just find a book written about Melanie.