The trunk is loaded. The inside of the car is crammed with snacks, pillows, and bags of nicknacks. I’m cruising down I-65. It’s the same trip that I was preparing to make 10 years ago. On August 8, 2008 at 11 pm, I signed off as “Nora Gathings” for the last time on WSBT, the local CBS affiliate in South Bend, Indiana, and made a rather unexpected journey back home.
The call to come home came in the midst of marathon coverage of a small town criminal trial over the maternity of an infant’s remains found in a remote wooded area. I was making the 45-minute drive each way with my photographer to work 12 plus hour days. I was exhausted and barely conscious when my phone rang. A man on the other end told me to trade my New York City cell phone number for an Alabama one. That man would become my boss at my hometown television station, a mentor and friend.
I remember sharing the news with my boyfriend. I was packing up and going home. Long distance relationships hadn’t worked in the past, so he could come or it was over. He came. Not too long after the move, we got engaged, married and welcomed two girls.
The news came as quite a shock to my parents. They were the ones who helped me move into my dorm at Florida State, my flat in London, and my first apartment in Manhattan. They offered advice when I made the decision to move to Boston for graduate school. My father happily drove me to Missoula, Montana for my first on-air reporting job. A few months later, he returned to move me from Montana to Indiana. In a rather nomadic career that leaves you to the whims of fate, relocating back home to Birmingham, Alabama didn’t seem to be in the cards. It’s taken the better part of the last ten years for my parents to realize that I’m home.
The journey home took me around the world to see new places, meet new people and appreciate the place that I couldn’t wait to run away from after high school. I can honestly say, I never expected to return to Birmingham, to stay and start my family. I certainly never expected to sign off from ABC 33/40 two years ago and take a break from the career that brought me back to my roots. That’s been the hardest part- the why, the where and what I am doing with my life. For years, my job was my life. With two girls, it’s about them and trying to balance home with work and without losing my own dreams. Where we go from here? No one knows where the next 10 years will take us. But I’m fairly certainly, it won’t take us far from home.
