The Training Wheels Are Coming Off

I don't often post about life outside of sewing around here - mostly because I'm not the most introspective of people.  I take most things as they come and try to make decisions based on facts, figures, and logic.  I look in wonder at those who only need their gut to tell them what to do.

I need my gut to tell me what to do and then I need to collect pages of information from various sources and put the information in an excel spreadsheet and move the information around based on seven different scenarios that might occur, ranked in order from most likely to least likely.  Needless to say, I'm a bit of a mess when it comes to making big decisions, which would explain why I've had a permanent headache for the last week as I've tried to decide whether to stay in my current career or make the leap into going back to school.  I thought I had made a final decision several weeks ago but a number of things changed at the last minute and that made me re-evaluate my decision.  I thought of how easy it would be to stay in my current job, about the flexibility that it gives me and my family, and how comfortable I was in a position that I've done well at for the past 9 years.

But that evening I took O on a bike ride and my thought process changed.  You see, O learned how to ride a bike without training wheels last summer but all this year she's refused to ride her big bike, instead opting to ride C's tiny bike with training wheels.  Truthfully, she looks absolutely ridiculous riding a 2 year old's bike around and as we headed to the park I found myself telling her:

"You can do this.  You've done this before."

"You can go so much farther and faster on the big bike."

"Don't be scared.  We're right here for you.  We'll help you."

And in that moment I realized that I was O.  I wanted to stay on the little bike forever.  It was comfortable and safe and I knew that I could do it.  I had mastered the little bike.  And, yes, I was fairly limited in where I could go on the little bike but I was ready to accept my self-imposed limitations.

And that's when I realized that I was approaching this decision all wrong.  Everything I was telling my child I should have been telling myself.  And I knew that if I expected O to ride her big girl bike, I needed to ride my big girl bike too.

I gave my final notice to my job today.

The training wheels are coming off.  And it's just as scary as O said it would be.