Life Decisions!

Since earlier this year, I've been reevaluating life. 

As you all know, I quit my job in early spring, which is still one of the best things I did for myself. My stress level was ooc and I was really beginning to dislike myself and the people around me because of the stressful job environment. I am unbelievably grateful towards Sketchy for being so supportive of my decisions. 

As you also know, I got into law school earlier this year. For the past couple years, I had been having difficulty getting into law school which led me to look into other career options. Knowing that I wanted to do something in environmental law, I looked into environmental policy and other environmentally focused graduate programs. 

As you all ALSO know, we moved into our home in Springfield, VA earlier this year. Roots. real roots. Not so easy to pick up and leave kind of roots. So i knew that whatever schooling i was planning on attending would have to be local. This was partly because we just purchased a house and partly because i believed that sketchy would never want to move, especially away from his family. 

So i got into law school, got extremely excited and tunnel vision paid the seat deposit to secure my spot in the fall 2013 class. I was so excited that i had the opportunity to go forth with my childhood dream, but wasn't really thinking about how that was going to affect my actual current real life situation. 

For the past few months i have been spending many sleepless nights thinking about where i am right now and where i want to be in the next few years. 

-I don't want to be in extreme law school tuition debt
-I don't want to end up without a job in 4 years after accruing so much debt
-I don't want to be in a stressful legal job after 4 years
-I don't want to be worrying about stressful schooling where every move counts and is so competitive
-I don't want to think about not even being able to think about starting a family for the next 5-6 years 
-I certainly don't want to try to have a family life and law school life at the same time. I do not want to half-ass anything else in my life. done with that. 

So i thought long and hard about what was more important to me at this point in my life.

At the same time, sketchy mentioned to me earlier this year that he was up for a move in life. Yes. This was shocking to me as well! When he said that, i was overwhelmed with all kinds of thoughts! The main reason environmental program was not looking like a great idea was because the majority of better programs and job market is not in our region. That's more of a northwest thing! When Sketchy mentioned he'd move, that option became much more appealing. 

-less schooling
-less stressful schooling
-less than half the debt of law school
-still in the field i'm interested 
-can shoot for a more 9-5 job 
-can definitely think about family much sooner. =) baby fever. i blame all the pregnant women of last year. 

and most importantly, we'd be making a big and exciting unknown move. Living in VA is great for one reason... we're close to sketchy's family and our friends. Other than that, living in VA sucks. The cost of living is ridiculous. The house you get is not worth the amount you pay. The drinks, food, entertainment of any sort really is overpriced! Everything is overpriced. We started looking at some suburbs in areas around schools i'd be apply to for fall 2014 and were drooling over the gorgeous newer homes 2x the size of our home, on lakes/at foothill of mounnttaainnnss for HALF the cost of our home! Yes, please! Also, looked up jobs and such and sketchy's salary wouldn't change or if it did, it'd be much less slight than the gigantic difference in cost of living expenses so it doesn't even matter! 

If we're not going to have dc-esque jobs, what's the point in paying dc-esque prices for living when you could cut your costs in half and have a better quality of life, not to mention start saving and be able to provide even better for your future family?! exactly, there's no point. 

And thus, I withdrew my acceptance to law school yesterday and I'm taking the GRE or GMAT. There's also still a fun option of MBA/something in marketing since the majority of my work experience has been in marketing and it's something i genuinely enjoy doing!

With this first big step and decision (withdrawing acceptance), our future exciting and crazy unknown plans are becoming much more real. After making the call to American I honestly felt a huge sense of relief -- i think for finally making a decision. I wish i had made the decision earlier so that someone on the waitlist could have been notified earlier. I definitely felt no regret yesterday. Today i felt a little strange just at having made such a big decision. 

Tonight we drove diana to the nats game and parked only to have diana's life blow up. Evidently she needed to get home to get something done ASAP for work. Diana often calls her firm a "lifestyle" firm which means that her whole life doesn't suck, but she still works her fair share of weekends and evenings and is plagued with a life of billable hours! 

Sketchy has been a little weird about my decision because he doesn't want to feel like he's the reason i'm making any decisions that i might regret later and resent him for down the road. Sketchy has mentioned that some of our friends have a pretty good and balanced life with work and fun, such as our friend Diana. While this life interruption and work blowing up was not good for her life, it was great for me and sketchy to both see that even in a "lifestyle firm," at the end of the day, you are a slave to the crazy work hours of an attorney. It was just me and him in the car and we didn't care about missing the game, we were happy to take diana home and head home ourselves, but imagine if there were two kids sitting in the backseat who had been looking forward to a baseball game. I imagine this is the life of anyone with a busy job/life and kids, but i don't want to be that person who has to say, sorry kids, we'll spend time later, mommy's/daddy's gotta go do work. 

I understand there's always an argument that it's easy to balance work and family life and CAN be done, but i just downright don't want to do it. I want to go to PTA meetings, i want to be present for all plays and games and dance recitals. I want to do community service with my kids. I want to be an active parent first and an employee second. I know that if i was an attorney I would want to give my 100% to my job and know that i would not be able to do so if I have a family too. 

I just want to be a normal person with a 9-5 and a happy home life. That's what i'm gonna do. 

In an earlier post I quoted Montgomery Gentry's song "Something to be Proud of"

"That's something to be proud of

That's a life you can hang your hat on

You don't need to make a million

Just be thankful to be workin'

If you're doing what you're able

And putting food there on the table

And providing for the family that you love

That's something to be proud of

And if all you ever really do is the best you can

Well, you did it man."

Today I leave you with this song. Love it. Enjoy! 

I hope that everyone remembers to do what makes them happy in life regardless of what people will think of it or you because it can feel unbelievably satisfying.

No regrets.