It was spring of 2007. I found myself in the most interesting class about city development and architecture…. though I have no idea how that applied to my major. Class was about to begin when a student burst into the door plopped into a seat while juggling loose books and a cup of coffee. The professor laughed at the sight of the disheveled and clearly overloaded student’s entrance. He attempted a quiet “everything ok?” though the room could hear him. The student responded, “yeah, I am just attempting to get a new job and I am thinking about changing my major… life is just messy right now.” Both the student and the professor shared a laugh and it seemed the professor took that as permission. He started by saying, “my wife just had our second child, I am applying for tenure soon, and I have a mortgage that comes every month. So many of you in this room think to yourselves “boo-hoo, I don’t know what my future holds! It’s so unknown and scary!” Just wait!,” he continued “one day you will wake up in your thirties with some non-negotiable certainties in your life and you will wish you had options. You will dream of unknowns!”

I must have really taken that moment to heart. Not only can I remember it like it was yesterday, but I seem to have dodged a lot of certainty in life. No debt. No mortgage. Hardly a steady career. And even though I absolutely love living in Bend, I find my mind wandering to other places I would like to live on a regular basis. The only known is my incredible partner in life, Michael.

It’s  been a decade since I received that advice and guess what? It still thrills me to have no idea how things are coming together! I still feel like my future is an unwritten page ready for me to create the next phase, phrase or prose.

Lately it has felt particularly blank. After 18 months of hammering away at the private practice I felt I needed a change. Not only does it seem life may take an unforeseeable turn (more on that later) but I would like to just make some steady money and have a more full client load. The private practice is still slowly growing and continues to get more streamlined but I would like to work with more people. So I followed that feeling and an opportunity came up to do some contract work for another private practice.

Long story short, I find myself in one of those awkward times in life where I have an abnormal amount of time on my hands. 

… And a PhD calling my name…