The Right Decision

Yesterday, I had a moment. (Okay, I have a lot of moments everyday but this one was notable.) But before I get to my moment, you'll need some back-story so put on your reading glasses and get comfortable.

I have this best friend, let's call her S, that I've known for a little over 5 years. Now, you should know that S is probably the most intelligent and grounded person I know. She has two degrees and makes a point to get her news from BBC; two things that greatly impress me considering I have half a degree and get my news from PerezHilton.com. So I go to her often for advice on how to sanely react to various things that occur in my life.

I even went to her with the idea to start this blog because she's been a blogger for a while and she blogged when she studied abroad and she's been talking about starting a new blog up (which is actually up and running now. no you will not get a link. Find it on your own.) But that's neither here nor there.The point of all this information is leading up to the following events...

We were making cherry cheesecakes (which turned out only okay) and S decided to start setting up her blog. I advertised the link to my blog on facebook and got a comment from another friend of mine, J. I met J when we were in college and we discovered that we were both studying to become high school English teachers. J, being a recent graduate, had just started a blog as well about being a new teacher. (Again, you're not getting the link. Find it on your own.) I was reading along all about her adventures and how much fun she's been having. And it got me thinking....did I make the right decision?

Was leaving college to focus on my writing a good life choice? Was it smart? Everyone I know is graduating with degrees while I'm stuck being a host for $9/hr at a restaurant, my writing going no where and I'm living with my parents. So I did what I always did, I went to S.

I asked her if I had made a good decision and she assured me that it was the right one because I wasn't happy when I was in school, in fact, I was miserable. But it appeared to be too late. I started to cry. I couldn't help it. I was freaking out. I felt so left behind, so stupid, so incompetent. What else could I do but cry?

S made me feel better by cracking some jokes. I laughed, but in truth, I was sobbing on the inside...


I spent the night at her house that night because it "just didn't make good business sense" (that's one of her adult-job phrases) to take me home that late when she had to drive by my house anyway to get to work the next day. But I didn't really sleep well. I kept waking up thinking about my decision to leave school. More than once, I left the bed completely to go stand in the living room and pace nervously. I'd have gone outside but the alarm was set and I didn't know how to turn it off. And even more frequently, I just sat on the edge of the bed and cried some more over my situation.

But after I finally drifted off to sleep and I woke up the next morning, I began a new day. I did my best to leave my worries in the day before and tried not to stress out about them. Stressing out about things like that never helped anything. All I can do is move forward. I've been applying for better jobs. I've been writing whenever I can.

I've made my decisions and now I must live with them. There are good things to come...they have to.

-K