Venturing into the unkown

 

Mel & myself at a Brewer game

Melanie and I have been friends since the beginning of seventh grade. That's nearly nine years of friendship. It's kind of a funny story, actually. She was new to our middle school and she said hi to me since we went to the same church. After that I basically invited myself over to her house after school one day, and then we became joined at the hip. Anyways, she was living in Madison with Evan, her ex-boyfriend, and was commuting to Plattville for school. Well, her and Evan are no more. And she's transferring to University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee for pre-pharmacy. She's looking for a roommate. And she asked me. The idea of moving to Milwaukee, just a short one hour drive from my home town, both excites me and terrifies me. To be frank, I strongly dislike still living at home with my parents and attending the small two year campus in our city. I would absolutely love to move to a city and go to a whole new college. Yet, at the same time, I'm saving over ten thousand dollars just from tuition and room and board by living at home and going to the two year campus. Now that's a lot of money! Not to mention I have a great job that I love and have zero living expenses. So what's a near twenty year old lady supposed to do?


Do I take a chance and move to Milwaukee with one of my best friends? I'll be twenty in June already. Should I pick up and leave now, before anything is really tying me down to this town? If I don't take this risk, what will I say in twenty years looking back? Will I be telling my kids, "I wonder what would've happened if I took that chance"? Then again, do I want to be paying off student loans when I'm 40? Not to mention I'm unsure of what I want to major in. (That changes just about weekly). So what happens if I transfer to Milwaukee just to find out they don't offer the degree I want? And what about my job? I love my job here. And my family - could I really stand living an hour from them? And if I'm going to move away, why move only an hour away instead of to a different state? I think about Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, and Boston, Massachusetts, and Atlanta, Georgia, all different cities I could see myself enjoying, all new horizons I've never experienced. 

I'm so young and there's so many different options out there for me. What do I do? And how do I make a decision? I know, I know, I need to follow God. But, honestly, right now, I'm not sure where He's leading me. Does that mean He wants me to stay right where I am? I get so frustrated not knowing what I want to do in the future. I see Melanie working to get into a pre-pharmacy program. Kristin is looking into graduate school. Devon is a pre-med student. Jessy is already working in a hospital. Megan will be done with her MBA next year, she's been married for almost a year, and hopefully soon she'll make me an auntie. And a majority of my friends are over half way done with their college career. I feel like there's so much pressure. And that I'm so far behind. I know I don't need to make up my mind right this second and a lot of people wait until their junior year to declare a major, but it seems like everyone has one picked out besides me.

Finals are coming up. And I have a paper due next Thursday... Seven pages. On Common Sense by Thomas Paine. One page down. If I write a little over a page a day, I'll be golden. I better go work on that a bit.