Looking back....

It seemed apt that I write a blog now as Monday would mark one year to the date that I left the US to embark on my solo adventure in England (well, solo save for Murphy). I knew the moment I submitted my application to Essex last August that I was making the right decision, and I must say that I still stand by it as the best decision I have ever made. It was a whirlwind of preparation, and my first few months here weren’t exactly peachy-keen, but I settled in and have fared pretty well, if I do say so myself. I never thought I would stay. I never thought I would get accepted to a PhD program, much less be studying video games as part of it. I mean, seriously, who does that?! Legitimately?


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And that's how my chapter 3 ended...

But here I am; in a new flat with a new O.M.G.-amazing boyfriend (thanks for reading, Universe!) and three years of research, writing, and substitute teaching ahead of me. I will probably reread this blog sometime in the next year and curse myself for being so naïve and/or blind, but whatevs. Right now, I’m basking in the awesomeness of it (all the while waiting for that other shoe to drop).

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I was really hoping it'd be a flip flop...

Cynicism aside, coming to England was the right way to round out my twenties. I had grown so much from the distrusting, anal retentive chicken shit that I was into this fearless, open, brave person I didn’t recognize. People tell me constantly how much they admire my decision but to me there was no decision: I HAD to come to England. To turn down the opportunity to obtain a degree in England, where our history and our literature were BORN, would have been paramount to figurative suicide.

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I said FIGURATIVE!!!!!

Because I would have always wondered what would have been. I would have died the moment I chose not to come because I would have always lived in that time of “what if I had gone?”. For someone who has never really held others’ advice up to any sort of light, it’s true, looking back, that you should always choose the riskier option. Not in the sense of taking all the drugs in the world, or drinking four bottles of Jack Daniels then getting behind the wheel of a car. But in the sense of chasing after the person you still love because you think you might be able to make it work; attending the interview for a job you want but don’t feel qualified for because qualifications are only a small part of why people get accepted into certain careers; following a dream even if it leads you to a foreign land where you know not a single person just because there’s nothing holding you back.

Yes, there are things you might have to give up in order to follow that risky option, and if you are more afraid of losing what you would give up than what you might gain, then the riskier option is in sticking with your current situation. Is this advice perfect for every situation? OF COURSE NOT! I’m not so egotistical to think that I have the whole of society figured out, but I do know that if you are unhappy in your current situation, if you feel stuck or like your whole life is being wasted, MAKE A CHANGE! And don’t be scared of it. Embrace the fear, the change, the risk. Otherwise, you’ll just be another empty husk, wondering what would have been. And I’d really rather not live in a Zombieland. Dawn of the Dead was scary enough.

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