Seven months, nearly eight, into the life I’d envisioned for myself by now—you’d think I’d be living a dream.

I am.

The thing about dreams—and you know, because you’ve had them—is that they do this weird thing where one moment you’re standing on top of the world, and the next moment sees you hurtling through space uncontrollably. You come up for air, then slip back into the surreal.

The dream is chaos incarnate, and the decision before you is to embrace it and steer yourself through lucidity, let it sweep you along as you sleepwalk, or… try to hold on for dear life—but the vice hold you try to apply ends up disrupting the whole thing, and now you’re lying in your bed, waiting to fall asleep again.

The ideal dream is indeed lucid, straddling the line between fantasy and wakefulness, wielding both to weave a blissful experience. Ideals are, by nature, difficult to achieve and more so to maintain.

Dramatic, right?

Doing the work.

The truth is, the time spent in Minneapolis has been awesome. I’ve been through challenging assignments, as invigorating as they are tough. It’s been a real “may the road rise to meet you” set of tasks, and the professional support has been fantastic; helpful, but not overbearing. Full of wisdom, but never micro-managing (which I detest).

I’ve been deployed on the road twice already (and, thankfully, since I didn’t go alone, there was no risk of suffering a food allergy with no lifeline—seriously, I’m not over that), have become familiar with a new (yet already known) audience and community, and have reoriented the goals I’ve set for myself.

I’m exploring increased possibilities, continuing to mature as a broadcast personality, and working harder than ever.

Minnesota Twins playoffs… St. Paul Saints playoffs… Minnesota United FC playoffs… Minnesota Lynx playoffs… Minnesota Vikings playoffs… Minnesota Gophers smoking Auburn in the Outback Bowl (which I was far too skeptical to be all in on—I’ve learned my lesson)… it’s been an intense seven months.

With the sheer volume of what’s happening around me, it is impossible to grow through it short of willful ignorance (and you know me better than that).

Taking it personally.

I have also matured in ways I did not see coming. Professionally, I expected to grow—I did not expect that growth to be linked to my personal development. At this point in my career, I am expected to operate with near-total autonomy.

Why might this be significant?

It is necessary in so many ways. It’s forced me to know who I am in relation to the world, what I have to offer it and, most importantly, what I want from it. I learned early to adapt to the world around me, giving it as much good as I can… being of service and asking nothing in return (it’s part of why I hired an agent—she’s fantastic at what she does).

At 28 years old, it’s high time for me to know exactly what kind of man I want to be—or at least working to figure it out. Full independence is knowing that responsibility begins and ends with oneself. Self-assuredness is a quality that I know I’ve been missing.

This makes me recall a day in graduate school where a professor, and now dear friend, said “see what you can do when you get your s—t together? This wasn’t meant as a jape—the subtext of more than a few of our conversations was that I was in some way inhibiting myself. Took me five years to figure out that I had been doing precisely that… for a long time.

Growth is uncomfortable. Having the self-awareness to realize the reality of the changes in self and in life grants a measure of peace in that period, but does not alleviate the discomfort. The only way out is through. The wildest part about this is identifying my emotional needs and how to meet them—and giving this area of my life the space it deserves while remaining committed to my other goals is a difficult but worthy task.

To know myself, to voice desire (and work to obtain the same), and to discipline myself has been a great gift given in recent months. Everything in life requires work—especially anything worth truly having. Sometimes, you must fight for what you want, and there’s no harm in doing that.

The hardest day I’ve faced.

The hardest thing I’ve had to do in my career was to report on Kobe Bryant’s death. Despite having no connection to the man, and not being a diehard fan of his, I found myself upended by news of the helicopter crash that claimed nine lives. Discussing the man requires nuance, but to have seen him as a paragon of relentless self-improvement… and to see such a life cut short was an especially brutal pill to swallow. Having to approach this situation with the appropriate gravitas without being affected on the job was an impossibility, and frustratingly so, for the aforementioned reason. Processing death while helping others process the same death put me in touch with my emotional center in a way that has not been done; I have long accepted death as an inevitability but, knowing how this one hit, I can say with certainty that it has an unpredictable effect.

Where do I go from here?

Just stay lucid and keep going. It’s been a worthwhile journey, and I have faith it will continue to be so.