The light bulb came on

I feel like I just had an epiphany about my life. 

I have been stressing our for months now trying to figure out what I want to do with my life when I'm done with this job. I had pretty much decided that I was going to go ahead and get my teaching certificate and teach for a few years because that's what makes the most sense. Deep down I wasn't really happy with this decision but I couldn't figure out why. I knew I didn't want teach. It's not that I don't like the idea of being a teaching because I do, but there was just something about it that wasn't sitting right with me. 

A little background for my epiphany: Last night I posted a note on Facebook that listed 25 thing about me that people night not know. I mentioned some people in it and tagged them. Lyndsey, a girl I work with at Cafe Monet was one of them. She read my note and decided to write one herself. I read it and commented on it. Two of the things she mentioned in her note were 1. that she really wants to run a marathon and 2. she really wants to go live in another country for 18 months or so. The comment I left her said "OK Lyndsey, let's do it. Let's train for a marathon for like a year from now and then once we've accomplished it, let's pick a country and go live/teach there for 18 months. I'm not even kidding. " Once I posted the comment I immediately realized why I'm not ok with getting my teaching certificate and teaching.

It's not that I don't want to teach but it's just that I don't want to teach RIGHT NOW. If I get my teaching certificate and start teaching in order to get my loans paid back then that's a big commitment. I'd have to pick a school district and be there for 3-5 years. I don't want to do that. I don't want to make that kind of commitment at this point in my life. All of the avenues I've been looking into are things that would commitment to something big for several years. I'm still young and I want more freedom in my life than that!

I do know that I want to spend the next year or so in Austin. This job has taken it's toll on me and I'm ready to be surrounded by friends and family and be some place familiar for a while. So when I thought about the comment I left Lyndsey I realized that's exactly the kind of thing that I want to do with my life. I want to settle back down temporarily and then and go do something else. Now is the time in my life that it's going to be easiest for me to pick up and move to another country or even just another state. I want to be experiencing things with my life and making the most of it and I just don't feel like I'd be doing that if I were to start some kind of career right now.

I feel so much better now that I've realized this. I couldn't figure out what I wasn't excited about my future. I liked all of the ideas that I was coming up with but none of them seemed right or made me excited for right now. I kept thinking "Sure, that's something I'd love to be doing with my life 10 years from now" but I couldn't figure out what I want to be doing right now.

Right now I want to finish my job as a Leadership Consultant and make the most of the time I have left doing it. I want to do my best with each chapter that I'm working with and really soak up the experience. Then I want to take a break. This "break" means me getting a job, saving money and making plans for the next step in my life. I feel like me taking steps to start a career right now would be the same as me getting married right now -- it's a big commitment that I'm just not ready for.

When I was writing blogs this summer they had a common theme of me wanting the travel and really experience things. For a while I thought that I'd changed my mind about that and it made me sad. It turns out I still really want all of those things but I'm just not ready for them. I have no money and I'm homesick. I need to go home for a while, get my family/friends fix and save some money. I want my life to be something that I look back on and don't regret. I want to have stories to tell my kids that inspire them and make them want to make the most of themselves. I don't feel like I'd be being true to myself if I were to settle down and get a "real" job right now. I feel like I'd really be settling and wasting my life. Some people may see me deciding to spend the next year in Austin and getting a temporary job as a waste of time but I don't see it like that at all.

I don't think I can make you all understand how I feel right now. It's like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders! I have been so stressed out about my future and quite honestly not looking forward to it at all. I kind of saw it as a black hole in space and or like a sinkhole in a swamp. I kept thinking that if I wanted to travel or do something with interesting with my life that I had to do it right away or I had to start grad school or get a real job instead. Why? What's the rush?

Well, I do have a ton of student loans that I need to pay back and that is quite a burden. But I would rather put them off for a while to pursue something really meaningful to me and deal with the interest that I'm going to be accumulating in the process. I already owe so much money that a couple thousand dollars really seems worth it to me -- worth the experiences that I'll be getting.

I do have some ideas for what I want to do with my time while I'm in Austin but I want to think about those some more before I share them. I want to really look into my options and have some knowledge about them before I get my hopes up about any one thing (I do kind of like the idea of training for a marathon though!). And once I figure out what I'm going to be doing for the next year or so then I will start making plans for my next big life adventure. I'm so excited!!! :)

**I'm also posting this blog on myspace.