Friends in Newsy Places

I have a set of friends that I used to spend nearly 40 hours a week with (more with happy hours or get-togethers) that now I'm lucky to see a few times a year.

My first job out of college was in a place that I will call Place that Time Forgot. It was like somewhere along the line, this newsroom stopped paying attention to Father Time, and walking through its doors were like walking through the ugly part of the '70s. We're not talking Jane Birkin here, we're talking... Well, I wasn't alive then but you know what I'm getting at. Frayed cords, holes in the tiling, my computer ran on Mac OS (no number after it) and barely got internet. I learned to report the old-fashioned way, hitting up City Hall, making a lot of phone calls, and even pasting up stories on big ol' storyboards.

The first week of my job, I went home every single day crying. I hated it. I had no idea what was going on. People in the city were mean, demanding, and very intent on swaying my news coverage to what THEY wanted to be said. I was too young and frankly, too scared, to stand up for myself.

I don't know when it is that you start to magically bond with new friends, but I was in a newsroom smaller than my loft, with people running 11 papers out of the doors every week. We were all about the same age, and we were all journalists, young idealistic writers, who felt like maybe life wasn't all it was cracked up to be--you mean, my college degree got me $20k a year and no benefits?--but you might as well have fun while you're at it.

Suddenly, each day was more fun as we teased each other, listened sympathetically to each person's problems, and made the newsroom a tolerable place to be.

They were my first friends that I met outside of school, save for one, who had taken a class with me in college. It was barely any time at all before I considered them my good friends.

It's been interesting to see how we've grown and changed as we make our way through adulthood. What was once many late weeknights out, drinking our fill, we are now tired on Fridays, heading home earlier, eager to tend to our growing families or to catch an extra hour of sleep. We've become eerily responsible, with mortgages and marriages, not flying by the seat of our pants quite like we used to. But it's ok. I think we've turned into pretty respectable adults.

What I have is a collection of friends where we can just pick up where we left off. We are all different people but we share a common thread, we shared some heady youthful days together. Whether it was drunkenly stealing a chunk of gouda from a catering table, sneaking out of work to shop at Target, sitting outside eating burritos for lunch....when life gets tough, they never back away, ready with a hug, a free lunch when you get laid off, or coffee and laughs. But mostly, hilarity ensues.

Thanks, my friends. It was so good to see you last night.