The words flashed across the screen next to my mangled copy � proof that I have no business thinking I could make it as a journalist in a big city. Fingers around me edited masterful epics on local boxers and ice cream stands � stories by people who appreciate this craft for what it is instead of where it will take them. If I can't make it in a city as a journalist, I reasoned, I'll try something else. I was trying to justify a possible career shift to public relations in an online conversation with a friend.

"and you'd pick spin over cops?" she asked.

"And if I had a shot at living in a more interesting city by doing PR, yeah, I'd take it," I clicked back.

"ok."

"I've just known too many people who had ambitions, but they just stayed in Iowa, and now they're never going to leave."

"i think it's crazy to give up at 22."

That night at Poynter, all the self-doubt and regret that accrued after years of personal and professional rejection had just gotten to be too much. My sincere attempt at good narrative journalism � a piece on a couple that travels the country to participate in dog competitions � was still a mess. I was at the mercy of editors, and it wasn't pretty.

Journalism, which was supposed to be my path out of small-town Iowa and to a more cosmopolitan life, wasn't looking very promising. The only option for someone at my skill level if I were to stay in journalism, I reasoned, was to pray for a newspaper editor in some remote town to hire me to cover community features or night cops.

Plenty of journalists start their careers this way and move on to better opportunities. After all, the way this summer was going, I'd be lucky to find any paper that would hire me.

Then that 13-year-old girl started nagging me.

She had braces and stringy hair. She preferred Franz Kafka to wrestling meets. She was stuck in a John Mellencamp song and counting on me to get her out of it.

Whatever it took, I could not settle for a life in the equivalent of my hometown. That wasn't part of the plan that girl made for me nine years ago.

People tell me I should just be happy with what I've already accomplished and make the best of whatever comes next. That probably works for girls whose dads worked in offices and called them "Princess," but mine worked swing shifts and called me "Big Stuff."

My entire life has hinged on the question of whether I was meant to be anything other than a blue-collar girl from southeast Iowa. At this point, settling in any other small town in America, whether in Kansas or Florida, would feel like just as much of a surrender as returning to Wilton.

A sign in front of the American Legion greets visitors on the way into my hometown:

Congratulation
Bar open to the public

The Legion is the site of milestone celebrations: weddings, graduation parties, anniversaries. I suppose it makes sense to leave up the "Congratulation" and just plug in name of the honored party, but it's an ironic sentiment considering my enthusiasm about being in Wilton.

When I was growing up, infractions such as "improper use of a stop sign" made the police blotter in the weekly paper. Police issued the citation against teenagers who cruised the abandoned downtown on summer nights and lined up their driver's side windows to chat in the middle of an intersection. Those same nights I'd dream about the East Coast and finding people who appreciated the paintings of Van Gogh and the poetry of W.B. Yeats as much as I did.

Journalism wasn't a part of the picture then, so why did I need it now? Back then, I simply wanted to learn as much about the world as I could � science, history, literature. I wanted to understand why the people who were shaping the course of the world made the decisions they did. I wanted to see a world that stretched beyond the borders of my known universe: Illinois to the east, Minnesota to the north, Missouri to the south, and Nebraska to the west.

But the hours spent on my driveway devouring Orwell and mastering algebra could not make up for the reality of my situation: I was completely trapped.

Nice girls from my hometown became dental hygienists and married guys who hung drywall. They had kids and took their families boating on the Mississippi River. Once they got settled, they never left.

My 13-year-old self believed I was worthy of mingling with people who were making history and waking up with that sense of promise that being in a big city could give you. Yet every setback felt like fate telling me I didn't deserve what I wanted.

Back at Poynter, I wasn't even close to being a standout. I was a policy wonk trying to write community features. What business did I even have here, when my most consuming passion has always been making a home for myself in a big city? I felt like a fraud.

I had to carve divergent paths before when I ran into roadblocks, so I was willing to do it again.

Growing up in Wilton, I answered to the nickname Big Words. A high school friend insisted I do a better job of editing myself if she was going to include me in her social circles � "Quit being so weird," approximates how she put it.

I was convinced I'd find the place in this world for the painfully serious. Surely I wasn't the only girl out there who spent a sick day in fourth grade watching C-SPAN coverage of NAFTA, worried her dad was going to lose his job. There had to be other small town kids somewhere who poured over Vanity Fair, pining for a glamorous world at the nexus of money, influence and intellectuality.

I've always known how much talent and luck it takes to forge a journalism career in a big city market. From the moment in 11th grade when I decided journalism would get me out of Wilton, I knew I would do whatever it took to become the journalist worthy of a big-city career. I had transferred to a larger school so I could pack in Advanced Placement classes, which I hoped would open doors for me at top-tier schools.

I got rejected or waitlisted by five of the eight universities I applied to. Northwestern University is still a sore subject for me. Devastated, I decided I'd postpone my dreams of living the cosmopolitan life for another four years or so. I chose the University of Iowa.

I earned a four-year scholarship to work at Iowa's student newspaper. My grades slipped, and I struggled to find a balance between my academic and professional careers. Yet I stuck with it, believing my commitment to journalism would pay off.

My junior year, I became a finalist for the Boston Globe's Washington bureau internship. This was it. Finally I had escaped the trappings of small-town life.

I blew the interview, didn't get the internship, and ended up spending the summer before senior year in Iowa. I struggled for a few more months, but I found an internship program that placed me in at the Washington bureau of Bloomberg News.

I had ups and downs in Washington, but overall the city fit me. I felt at home among people who loved discussing politics as much as I did, but I was preoccupied with whether I was talented enough to make it there permanently � although I was determined to try.

A few job opportunities fell through, so I concluded Poynter was the best next step. I thought I'd find affirmation that I hadn't wasted four years, and that journalism could help me carve out the path I wanted.

Poynter taught me that the best journalists can go anywhere and flourish. They see potential even in the mundane. They know it's just as important to tell stories about grieving families as it is to tell stories about President Bush's tax policy.

I wasn't one of them.

Now, I'm headed back to Wilton.

It's not as if I'll be there for long. Give me a couple of weeks; I'll pack up again, gather my savings, and call up friends in New York, Washington and Boston.

You can tell me I'm short-sighted or arrogant. Tell me it wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to start out in a smaller city.

Just don't be surprised if I ask you if you've ever felt trapped.