As another year draws to a close, I want to take this week (the last week that I’ll be publishing Jeremy’s Journal in 2022) to reflect on the year behind me. Additionally, as genuinely as I mean anything I write this week, I can’t help but feel that I am walking through a holiday themed cliché minefield. I’ll try to limit my cheesy wordplay.
The first aspect of my life I feel compelled to reflect on is my career. I graduated university at the end of last year and freshly armed with a Bachelors degree and a mountain of indecision, I began the treacherous journey into adulthood. I am aware that I am adult shaped. I am 6’1, I can grow a most of a beard, I own shoes that aren’t sneakers. But when people call me an adult I still turn my head and look behind me. Surely not me? I think. I think that changed a little this year.
Though my degree lends itself to the advertising industry, I wasn’t drawn to the work or culture. I began the year investing my time in my skill as a reader and writer. You may not think it takes much skill to read, but words are hard! Trying to ensure that I distilled some kind of lesson from each book I read became important to me, whether I was consuming self help books, nonfiction or romance novels.
I initially focused on writing across all mediums, but later settled on screenwriting. When I went to New York to work at a summer camp writing and directing short films, though, my passion quickly pivoted. Funny how that happens, isn’t it? I think I was interested in film because it offered me access to teamwork, human stories and creative communication. I soon found those qualities in other fields, though. I fell in love with film photography (again) and began developing skills (a pun, oh no!) in old school film development and hand printing. That’s the thing with the red lights where you dip the paper in all the chemicals. Yes, those are technical terms.
When I returned home from the States, I believed that my calling was in film photography and film camera repair. That wasn’t the case, though. Or rather, my career didn’t consist solely of film photography. I then began the blog you are reading now for no particular reason, but soon found it to be extremely gratifying. I enjoy sharing and having the opportunity to engage with the world, to be serious, to be silly.
There were a couple other career experiences thrown into my 2022 cocktail. I worked for an Italian artist for a week and attended a very fancy business lunch with him. I built a couple websites. I freelanced as a voice over artist. I think, though, that there was one big takeaway from this year. And of course, it deserves a line break.
I used to think in absolutes. I was one thing. A photographer, a writer, a designer. I worried that if I chose to be a writer I was locked out of photography. What if I made the wrong choice? I now believe that I can be many things, all at once. I can pick and chose how to be creative as a writer, photographer and designer, and I believe that as I become more skilled in one field, it influences my perspective in another. That’s my first big lesson of 2022 - I can be more than one thing.