Growing up and Getting Out

Where are you from and where are you going?

I grew up in small, rural towns in Utah where the biggest opportunities you could hope for was either working in agriculture, construction, or on a production line. It might be hard to believe it looking at me now, but I grew up a cowboy. I herded sheep, branded cows, trew hay bails, and rode horses. I spent summer days walking around with my Red Ryder BB gun in imaginary shootouts or polishing my skills on my dad’s old roping dummy. For that first third of my life, I was destined to work in agriculture. Then I moved to a slightly larger town and shifted my destiny towards construction or factory work.

By the time I was in my twenties I had discovered comics and wanted more out of life than making farm equipment for a living. I had discovered comics and fallen in love. I’d always been a writer, but it was when I really discovered comic books, right around the time that I was leaving highschool and entering the workforce, that I realized there was a possible future in comics. Soon I was reading about the craft, researching how the industry worked, building a deep understanding of the mechanics of storytelling and sequential art. I was going to work in comics.

In my mid twenties I quit a decent job to go work at a comic shop. I made less money, but I was much happier. After settling into the life of comics retail, I applied for college and began the journey of academia. Now I was living in a small city and my possible futures broadened even further, but I was focused on comics. Around the time I was finishing my degree I became interested in a career as an editor and even managed to begin doing some small editing jobs before I graduated. Only weeks after getting my diploma I packed up everything I owned and moved to Portland, Oregon. Suddenly the possibilities for what the future could be seemed limitless.

In Portland I would meet people who could make a living doing just about anything. More importantly, I was able to surround myself with peers who were making theirs in the comics industry. Over and over again, I had become the big fish in a small pond, then found a bigger pond where I could be a small fish with room to grow again. By the time I made it to Portland I was damn near swimming in the ocean. Unfortunately, I felt that I had made it here too late.

While I have experience editing professional comics, the industry is incredibly competitive. The few people that I know that make a living working for companies mostly all found their way in from internships or working in other, similar industries that put them in contact with comics publishers first. Neither of those things existed in Utah. I found myself in my mid-thirties still working the same kind of jobs I could have gotten back where I came from. Even with all that personal growth and building a professional network that I had accomplished, it really began to feel like I had already missed my opportunity. Not even my college degree seemed to help me get into a fulfilling job outside of comics. Without office experience, it didn’t matter what I could do or had the ability to learn, I wasn’t getting a desk job. I did everything to fight that small town destiny that I was born into, but I couldn’t escape it.

I’m still in that place now. My day job isn’t comics. I work a labor job loading cargo planes with no real opportunity to grow or build a career. I worked really hard to get further in life than my parents were able to, but I haven’t made it yet. The last few years have been frustrating because I want to continue to grow, and I can see where I need to be to do that, but I’m locked out. Some days I still feel like it’s possible to get there, but some days I don’t believe I ever will. If I made any mistakes along the way getting to where I am, it is that I didn’t leave home sooner. Although there are plenty of people that I love and miss, I wouldn’t be upset to never visit the state again.

Moving from Utah to Portland expanded my world. It only takes about ten hours to drive from where I grew up to where I live now, but that was an unthinkable distance for me at one point. My family didn’t travel much, our world was quite small. Last year I left the country for the first time in my life and visited the UK. My world expanded even more, and so too did the possibilities. Even if I haven’t yet escaped my small-town fate, I’ve already gone further and seen and done more than most people who still live in that place. I left too late, but the good thing is that I finally left. I wouldn’t be the same person if I had stayed, and I’m happy to be the person that I am now, and excited by all the possibilities ahead of me.

A few pictures from my UK trip.

This post doesn’t quite have a happy ending. I’m still loading cargo planes and struggling to find my way. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by that and struggle with it, but I am also really proud to have made it this far. I don’t have a lot of answers for solving my own problems, but I do know that the best thing I’ve ever done for myself was to leave home.

I don’t know what the rest of the year holds for me, but I’m going to make sure it includes more traveling. I would like to encourage my readers to do the same, on whatever scale is possible. If you’re feeling stuck, make your world larger. Go explore another city, drive to the furthest state you can, find a cheap airline ticket to wherever. Don’t wait, just get out of your comfort zone and explore a place you’ve never been. You’ll wish you did it sooner.

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