I hope Van Halen will allow me to title this post with one of their lyrics. (Straight up we'll climb ... leave it all behind ... ). I got ill two nights ago, stomach ill, one of the worst for me. I thought maybe I'd gotten food poisoning from a fast food restaurant on the way home from yet another trip. Now, two days later, I believe it's stress. The amazingly intense stress of working, traveling, and going to graduate school full-time. I'm buckling. I haven't spent enough time on school, enough time at home, enough time with my friends and family. This is when it gets hard. This is when people make life-changing decisions. This is when I have to make some life-changing decisions.
I don't love working in HR. I drag myself out of bed in the morning to do it because I make a great living at it. But the truth is, I have found what my dreams are made of. My dreams are in the kitchen. Cooking. Tasting. Teaching others the joys of cooking and tasting. Writing. Talking about food. Planning menus and parties. Living in my own world with my own rules. The question becomes: How will I get there? I fear I have become so lazy and complacent, but the time is now. I must make steps, no matter how small, to get my to my goals. If I wake up in 5 years and am still in the same place - physically or emotionally - I will have failed.
I read and watch Ina Garten, who is a role model to me. Stuck working in a government job - a very good job - but going home at night to her one true passion. Her husband encouraged her to leave it all behind, to climb higher and higher, and she is a success. She loves what she does, she's good at it, and I suspect she's fabulously wealthy. While my path won't be the same, I hope that my end goal is similar - to love what I do unequivocally and whole-heartedly. To jump out of bed in the morning, put on my apron, or sit down at my laptop to write important things. This is what my dreams are made of.
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