Showing Me the Way

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I did everything I was supposed to do.

Go to college, they said.

You need a degree to get a good job, they said.

This is the mantra when you enter high school, what you are told over and over again. I accepted it and also saw it as my way out coming from a small town.

I'm meant for bigger things and college will get me there, I said.

There I was, in 2005, packing more than half my belongings up and moving into a concrete walled room, hopes and dreams high for my future. My future job was in my grasp. The job I wanted?  To be a journalist. I loved writing and that's all I wanted to do.

After being on the school newspaper for a year, I found it just wasn't for me. Writing those stories, not my style. I explored my options with my "advisor" and switched over to public relations. I decided I wanted to be a PR person for a company or big shot celebrity. I had the writing down just needed to fine tune it a little.

I excelled at my PR classes, loved writing press releases and putting that spin on a story. I eventually picked up a minor in event planning. With PR, you are responsible for planning events and launch parties like the big people do. Or so I was told.

Then came graphic design. I had to take a beginning course as a requirement for my minor, but ended up loving it. I could whirl my way around Photoshop and Flash like a pro. OK, I exaggerate but a pro in college terms. It was too late to drop my event planning minor and pick up this instead.

Put it as a concentration on your resume, I was told.

My grades were decent, not straight A's but not straight C's. I had internships, worked my way through college and was in a sorority that gave me leadership and event planning experience. I was ready to take on the world the fall of my senior year. I was ready to go out and work for that dream job.

What no one could tell me.

You're mom won't be there on graduation day.

Your last semester of college will be turned upside down.

My last semester of college was the best definition of a blur. My family insisted my mom would want me to go back, and I agreed but there are days I can't even remember from my last semester. I was struggling going to class and adjusting to my mom being gone.

While everyone was finalizing resumes and going on job interviews, I was trying to heal the biggest hole in my heart. I also had to make different decisions then I had planned. I would be going back home indefinitely to get my mom's house in order.  Not my original plan. I had planned on staying there with her that summer while I searched for a job.

May 2009, I received the degree everyone told me I had to get. I also received hefty student loan bills and a whole mess of no jobs near the middle of nowhere where I had to back to. I was on my way to broke, no job and living in the house I had shared with my mom.

I fell into a job to pay the bills, still having hopes I would find something else. Something I really wanted to do. As those jobs didn't come, the promotions at this job kept coming. Months turned into years. 4 years today. 4 years I have been with this company. 4 years I have given so much to be stuck.

Going back into what I went to school is almost a whole new start. At 27, I have to make a new start?  But staying where I am, requires me to work somewhere that doesn't deserve me anymore. They have used up everything I can give them and keep beating me down. I am unhappy and do not enjoy my job anymore.

As you can see, the path I took after college determined my future. It wasn't the path I chose, God chose it. Now it's time to accept that where I am is where He wants me to be. He will show me the right way. Just have to keep reminding myself.