Leaf

It's been about a week since I finally put into words that the path I've chosen isn't what I want to do. Since my meltdown on my couch last Saturday I've conferenced with my ma, talked to my cooperating teacher and supervisor, messaged two of the wisest men I know, vented to Joey, and emailed my English profs at school for help. And this is basically what I've learned:

• Most importantly, I don't have to feel like I have everything figured out. I am, in fact, only 22 years old - maybe about 1/4 of the way through my life. The fact that I'm not sure is OK.
• This isn't a decision that I have to make tomorrow. There is ZERO reason to freak out about it now.
• I can basically do anything (except nursing and engineering) with an English education degree. I've learned how to be a good writer, the ins and outs of grammar (a.k.a. editing skills, a.k.a knowing that "editing" has one T and not two), above-average communication skills, and how to instruct other people in those areas. This is why businesses like to hire English (even education) majors.
• No amount of education can be called a waste. Even if I don't go into the field of my degree I've learned many more valuable things.
• If I go to grad school and live at home, my parents will help to pay for it. Ma mentioned looking into something to do with libraries.
• Editing and publishing are good places to start, as well as some (but not exclusively) freelance writing.
• "Writing on the side" is all well and good, but that can be hard if I get a job writing during the day - when it's time to write for yourself, you're tired of words. Unrelated jobs give you ammo to write about at night anyway.

It's a start. At least it's more than I had to go on than last weekend.

So let's list the options. I could go to grad school online and work (maybe two jobs) while I live at home, have my parents help me pay for it, and stash away the money that I'm earning. I just need to figure out what to go for, and it needs to be something I'm really interested in. I could keep working at Kroger and pick up another job in January (where, though?). I could always sub (which would make it tough to get another job since the days are so erratic), but that would be putting my degree to at least some use. One of those wise men encouraged me to try teaching for a year or two, but that doesn't sound like a great choice when I have one of the teachers from my student teaching school saying if I'm not 150% passionate about it to get out now. (I've spent the last four years working at a job I'm not passionate about, I don't want teaching to become "just a job" and lose that enthusiasm that will make me effective). I could pick up and move to Pennsylvania or North Carolina or Ireland (just me and my debt) and say, "Screw this, I'm starting over."

My parents rest easy at night knowing I'm too fat and uncoordinated to be a stripper.

One of the options has never been just dropping out: I have one last hoop to jump through - just eleven or twelve weeks (and some of those are only half-weeks, at that) and I'll have my diploma. And you have a better chance of getting a better job with better pay if you have a degree - regardless of what it's in - than if you walk in with a half-baked degree. And like Joey said, I don't have to worry about this tomorrow...why panic about it today?

The one thing I forget most of the time is to rely on God's timing. He has a game plan, He sees what's coming down the road and through the fog that I can't even imagine yet. And while I'm running around in a panic, He has all of this figured out. The only thing I have to focus on now is jumping through this last hoop and letting Him show me the next step.

~

Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4.6-7)

That Moment

There comes a moment when you have look at your life and say, "Am I doing what I really want to do?"

Not what someone says is a good choice, not what sounds logical on paper, not what looks like the best option.

Am I doing what I really want to do?

And if the answer is no, you have to figure it out what it is instead.

~

I think the whole idea of college is confusing to a lot of us. Before you even move in, you have to pick a degree, which will be the basis for the rest of your educational career. You get into your classes, and some of us realize that we hate those classes. And so you change your major to something you're pretty sure you'll like better. And the training you get is what prepares you for what you'll supposedly do for the rest of your life.

And suddenly you find yourself sitting on your couch, eating pizza and bawling as you finally put into words the thought that has crept up on you when you're lying in the dark and finally able to drop the front: 

"I don't want to be a teacher." 

The job you've imagined, trained for, dreamed about really isn't what you thought it was.

You start to panic a little. This was the plan! This was my future! This was what I was banking on! I want so much to love this! Guys, I am good at teaching! Kids learn from me! I'm planning and doing and teaching and organizing and gathering resources so I can do this on my own!

And I don't want to do it.

I'm about a month into student teaching, and it's going really well. And I've been warned, "Don't write this off already, you've only just started." But you know how you just know about some things? This is one of those things.

The problem is, I don't know what else to do. I've talked over so many options with my ma in the past two days, I"m just getting more and more confused. It doesn't help that I have this perspective in my head (wrong though it may be) that I have to find a job "worthy of my degree." Something in my head tells me it has to be something that will send me upward, something that will challenge me and so many others, something that will influence the world.

Is it bad that all I want is a 9-5 job that I can leave at work?

Is it bad that I've cost my family thousands of dollars - earned myself thousands of dollars' worth of debt - worked for four-and-a-half years on a degree and all I want to do is be a writer?

It is bad that I'm coming to the end of a very long and hard journey and want to ditch the path I thought was mine, running back to the love I developed in third grade but didn't see as a viable option?

I haven't had a day off since Labor Day, working sixteen-hour days during the week and eight-hour shifts on the weekends. I am exhausted, physically and emotionally. And at first I wondered if all of this meltdown might just be a side effect of this. But I don't think this is just me being tired. I believe that when you get to the point where you're too exhausted to put up your defenses, the truth comes out.

I don't want to teach.

I'm going to finish student-teaching - stopping that has never been an option. But when I graduate, I don't think I'll be found in a classroom.

Prayers as I question what I'm supposed to do - get a job, move out, go for my masters - would be appreciated.