Olivia Ground is a fourth-year advertising major who writes “Liv, Laugh, Love,” for the Daily News. Their views do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily News.
There are very few memories I have from high school that will never leave my subconscious, no matter how much therapy I go to.
I will never, ever forget the sinking feeling I got in my stomach when I found out that I was never going to get my senior season of band. The season I spent nearly five years waiting for, dreaming of and anticipating.
The traditions I loved and couldn’t wait to see myself in: senior speeches, standing in front of the stands of parents to accept awards — all of it gone in one fatal blow to my wellbeing.
I picked up the pieces the best I could. I watched my senior class’s parents do everything they could to make some sort of normalcy in the season. I remember my mom frantically trying to put together any sort of normalcy for seniors, for me. As much as I appreciated it, it was not enough to heal the growing depression that was consuming me.
This sinking feeling is one that I know I am not the first one to talk about. I was not the only student to lose something to the pandemic, and I know my loss does not come anywhere close to the lives lost to the pandemic.
But it was never just the hope of a senior season that died. It was my ambition, my joy and my passion.
My passion has always been my strongest personality trait. I love people and things strongly, and I do things that make me passionate. Music and band were my passion, and it was gone in one singular blow.
I spent most of the pandemic, lockdown and the ‘return to the new normal’ of senior year a shell of myself, lost in my head as I looked desperately for something — anything — that was going to make me as happy as marching band made me. That chapter of my life was forced shut early, and I never got the chance to find closure for the biggest part of my life for five years.
I needed a new thing to find peace in.
When it came time to go to college, I picked a major and a minor I thought I could find passions in. I settled in the advertising program with a focus on journalistic narrative writing — I always had a passion for storytelling. But, up to that point, my only storytelling was through the marching arts. Stories told through music and 60 people working in tandem on a field, five months and hundreds of hours to tell an eight-minute story.
My family, who knew that I was struggling, encouraged me to go to college and try to embrace something new. My mother gave me the best advice she could — to go and find my people and to do good things.
So, with a missing sense of self, an unsure feeling about what it was I was passionate about anymore and no friends coming with me, I set my sights on Ball State. I packed up my bags and made peace with what I was leaving behind.
And I thank God every day that I made that choice, because college was the best thing to happen to me.
I joined the Daily News in my first semester as a freshman. I had no interest in newspapers or journalism, but there was a promise made to me that I could do social media work then and now, no waiting until I had taken the right classes first.
And that was enough for me. I had a career planned for me in social media management.
I expected a few years working behind the scenes on social media, a line on a resume, and a fast track out of college early and into a job. I didn’t think I would have to meet anyone or be around people. I thought that I could keep to myself, all of which sounded appealing to an anxious 18-year-old.
And then an editing role opened up to oversee social media, and I took it. Before I knew it, I was writing almost every week, taking pictures and I was designing multiple projects. I was meeting the people that I love so dearly now. I couldn’t get enough of the newsroom, the staff, and the ever-so-rewarding job of telling the news.
Journalism, and all the things that came with it, was like an insatiable hunger in me. Every byline, every photo, every like on social media was creating a fire in me to keep going. It was addictive.
I had found my passion again. I found my people. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
As cheesy or corny as it sounds, it felt like everything else could fall into place. I had so many people in my life who genuinely loved me, cared for me and wanted the best for me. People who saw my potential fostered a space for my growth and let me come to work as my authentic self.
I rediscovered my love for storytelling. Only this time, I exchanged my flute for Adobe Creative Suite and a DSLR. My letterman jacket was exchanged for a press badge. I put down my sheet music and picked up an AP Stylebook and never looked back.
I started to love things loudly and find passion in my interests that I had been shying away from. I’m no longer afraid of others’ opinions of me whenever I unapologetically want to post about the new Taylor Swift album or rewatch the same anime I’ve seen 10 times already.
Had it not been for Ball State and the newsroom, I would have never met the people who mean the world to me. Hannah, Ella, Maddie and Oakley fill me with an unapologetic passion for life. They remind me every day that this life — my life — is something that is worth living. They make me the best version of myself.
So now, as I look ahead at this chapter of my life closing, I am excited. This time, it's closing on my own accord, and not because it was forced to end before I was ready to say goodbye. And to be honest, I will never really be ready to say goodbye to The Daily News, but in a way, I never will have to.
I am forever grateful for the DN and all the beautiful people it brought into my orbit. This life I live now is one I would have never envisioned for myself five years ago, when it felt like my world was crumbling around me, but it’s a life I am eager to live. It is a life that I know I am never going to walk alone, and a life that I will always find joy in because I have a passion for it again.
The Daily News gave me the biggest gift anything could ever give someone, and that was something to be passionate about. And in this life, to love something so much that it ignites a passion that drives you to do good in this world is the biggest gift a person could receive.
Contact Olivia Ground via email at olivia.ground@bsu.edu
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