I tripped over a chair once as I walked off stage in a high school production of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. Blithe? Perhaps, but coordinated? Sadly no. My repertoire of human emotions and life skills has never included that all-important Graceful Exit.
I fall. A lot. Over the past four years, my gripes with gravity have cost me a perfectly serviceable, but tractionless, pair of black shoes, a hefty dose of self respect and, alas, a tooth.
Now, as I prepare to pen the final chapter in my Chronicle career, I can already sense that all-too-familiar quivering in the knees and sudden tightening of the spine. I am afraid, quite literally, of falling on my face-of failing to say anything of interest to any of you.
Over the past few weeks, possible column topics have flitted in and out of my life like food points. I thought of regaling you with witty observations on communism or Diet Coke, or the way life is like potted meat. Now, staring at this dauntingly blank screen, they all feel woefully inadequate. The quirkiness of human existence, though remarkable, far exceeds my powers of observation and description, and I doubt my musings on the subject would bring much to the table. Stripped of blissfully ignorant confidence in my witty banter, I am left only with that fear of falling-my less-than-welcome long-time companion.
For me, being editor has been an exercise in exorcising that terror. I fell into this job with less-than-stellar skills at the little things, like editing, or laying out the paper, or managing a staff. Each and every issue loomed like an insurmountable obstacle on the 5 p.m. horizon of my day. But being in charge means being in control-not of other people, but of yourself.
No one wants to work for a lunatic. Or a maudlin fool. So you bottle up those petty personal insecurities and character flaws and bury them deep in your high-school-drama-perfected aura of blissful self confidence. It's all about appearances, about pretending to be what you're not and to feel what you don't.
For me, oddly enough, the fear of being labeled a fraud inspired competence beyond my wildest dreams-it hasn't made me clean my office, but I stopped wearing the "Bite Me" shirt to meetings with the provost.
But just when my confidence had become more than a facade, I suddenly slipped into a pool of self doubt, a vast, murky puddle that swallows overachievers like raindrops.
Like most seniors, I sent out countless resumés-each sealed with a kiss for good luck and mailed with a sense of self assurance. Then the responses came, deliberately and persistently like the painful thud of a hammer.
Rejection letters, I've had many. I've shredded, burned, posted and mocked them. Mostly, though, I mourned them and the loss of my professional innocence. There I was, face to face with the real world, and it didn't want me. Journalism, I realized, is not a good place for writers with fragile egos.
A lone job offer later, my place in the world of professional journalism is secure, at least for the time being. How fitting, though, that I tripped getting in the door.
My year as editor has been filled with near-spills and clear wipeouts. But in four years, when I exist in The Chronicle's consciousness as just "that communist with a Diet Coke fetish," this volume will be remembered for the strength of the papers, not the comportment of the editor.
The strength of The Chronicle is that it transcends the personal foibles of individual staffers. The strength of The Chronicle is that nothing, not even my clumsy bumbling, can break it.
No matter what, there will always be a paper in the morning, and no matter what, that paper will always be filled. For the past two years, that simple truth, and the recognition that only hard work can preserve that inescapable determinism, has provided the structure for my existence.
I made it out of this year with all of my teeth in place and my ego intact, although in check. I made it through because of the steadying hands of this staff, which makes the task of balancing school and friends and work and Chronicle look exceptionally easy. They are the very embodiment of grace under pressure. Maybe they can teach me how to exit.
Katherine Stroup is a Trinity senior and editor of The Chronicle. Like her predecessors, she aches with the knowledge that she will never again be either.
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