I exist in two totally different worlds. Obviously not literally, but sometimes the reality seems like my life takes place in planets that are orbiting in different universes. I hop on a flying saucer and make the interplanetary journey a few times a year, sometimes only for a couple of days, maybe a few weeks, but usually, the best trips are for months. Please forgive my galactic analogy, but it’s how I feel when I hop in the Chevy and drive south for college.
Yes, in my weird way, I am referring to the drowning sensation know as secondary education as a different world. There are the clear distinctions: different friends, living situations, social activities, work, but mostly what makes the leap to college feel like launching into a different orbit is the change in environments. One wouldn’t think that about 235 miles make much of a difference, but once you cross the Prime Meridian the land and the culture takes a downward slope (I am referring to the lack of amazing hills, by the way).
I grew up in the Sandhills of Nebraska— no better place in my opinion—where I was raised on a couple different cattle ranches. Beef cows, horses, and a few cats and dogs were my daily reality for 19 years. I knew what was going on in the industry in the state as well as on the national and international scales. I heard it on the radio stations, read it in the newspapers, flicked through magazines and gained new information from talking to other people in the industry. I had my fingers on the pulse of the agriculture community. Then I moved to college. In Hastings, Nebraska. It is not like it's New York City or San Francisco, ya know? It is centered in the middle of corn, so why do I feel like I am lightyears away from where I started?
I was drawn to my college because of my passion for writing, hoping it would help me connect over to my life of ranching. I wanted to (and still do) advocate for agriculture. The problem is I chose to go to a liberal arts college to study Journalism with no real emphasis or connection to agriculture. That is where the gravitational pull from my Sandhill’s world was somehow severed and found myself drifting toward another planet known as college.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not condemning my college, it is an amazing institution and really love it there, but there is a definite disconnect between my lives at home and at school. I have a few friends that understand where I am coming from, they experience the same thing too, but then there are others that have no idea where I am coming from (as far as missing my cows is concerned); which has helped cement my yearning to be an ag journalist.
Everybody is different, but there are no extraterrestrials in my life, I may be living in two different worlds, but it is still on the planet Earth. We are all just people coexisting, all pursuing our different passions, all coming from different backgrounds, but there are always similarities somewhere.
