How Decisions Empower Your Future – My Big Move (to Wanda!)
In life we are given the power to make decisions.
From the moment you’re born, you get to decide things. Things like which faces make you cry and which ones you find comforting, or which kind of toys capture your attention the longest. These decisions multiply as you get older. Which sports do you gravitate towards? What subjects in school do you find most interesting? What do you want to be when you’re older? Who you want to be when you’re older? Do you go to college? Do you do the military thing? Do you decide to get married? Do you travel and explore? Do you have good friends and hobbies? With just a blink of an eye, you wake up one day and realize that all those little choices have added up and created your current version life. That while you were making decisions, the decisions were also making you. Then the question then becomes; are you happy?
For many people, it’s a complicated answer. Yes in some ways, no in others… yes most of the time but then other months, it’s consistently no. Like I said, complicated. But what I’ve come to learn, is that it really doesn’t have to be.
Choices that Shape Us
Growing up, some decisions are clear as day- whether or not you like the taste of something. Then there are other choices- like if you should quit playing a sport because it got hard or if you should be mean to someone because other people are. These choices affect us more than we realize. Maybe if you kept playing that sport, you would be an athlete. Maybe if you were nicer, you could have created a valuable friendship or connection down the line. All of our little choices create micro tears in our future, rearranging our opportunities and personalities. It’s not easy to visualize the weight of our decisions in our youth. Yet, it’s undeniable that they set tonality and pathways for who we’ll one day become.
I don’t think any choices made could be considered ‘bad’, rather they just are what they are. They were what you wanted in that moment, what you needed. Maybe you couldn’t become an athlete, because you were destined for something greater. Maybe you couldn’t become that person’s friend, because the relationship wouldn’t have served you. Who knows. You can’t play what if, you can’t go back and change things, but you can recognize that you do have power over your future.
Time For Change
I think we “wake up” many times in our lives. Epiphanize that we aren’t happy. That we didn’t like the place one of our decisions led us to. Maybe some of these wake up calls kick us into gear, get us jumping out of bed and racing toward the door. And maybe some we allow to kick at us while we lie there. Over and over and over again, without ever moving. Until we eventually just go back to sleep and forget we ever woke up at all.
The decision you make when facing a “wake up” is an important one. It’s the one I’m getting at.
Our minds are so incredibly powerful. I believe with all certainty that you can decide something into existence. You can decide that you deserve to be unhappy. Or that your actions have led you here and well, you made your bed and you’re gonna lie in it. You can decide you’re not ready, that you’re too old, too young, too comfortable, too situated, too new, too inexperienced, too overqualified, too-anything! You get to choose all of those things. Or, you could choose “to Wanda!” (To hell with it ALL.) That’s the way I prefer.
“If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.” -Geena Davis
Hotel California & Taylor
I first want to say, that I am so incredibly thankful for all of the choices and decisions I have ever made and that I’m very grateful to have my family. Before New York, I was living in California. I lived walking distance to almost everyone in my immediate family. Life was good. I had a good job, an insane gym routine that made me really happy, spent lots of time at my parent’s beautiful home and pool, had just been admitted to Chico State University, and was surrounded by loved ones. Yet, for some reason, something didn’t feel right. It was like I had all these beautiful puzzle pieces that somehow didn’t fit or belonged to another puzzle entirely. Like I was living a life I should want, rather than the one I did.
I had recently reconnected with my cousin Taylor at another family member’s wedding. She had been living in New York for a few years and it felt like we had lifetimes to catch up on. We shared many phone calls and soon enough she was urging me to come out for a visit. August was coming to an end and school was starting in less than a week, so I figured I was due for one last summer hurrah.
Love Letters to New York
From the moment I landed in New York, I felt pieces of me shifting. There was this palpable energy, this sense that here- in New York, anything was possible and I could be anyone in the world. There were no small-town limitations, no expectations to settle down, no chains and ropes tying me into a corner. Rather, in New York, I felt like I could string together a completely new life. Like each street contained opportunities and adventures I had never even considered and it wasn’t too late for me to live a life I dreamed about.
That first night in New York, I had dinner with Taylor at a popular Thai restaurant called Soothr. She asked me about my first day in the city and I simply said, “I think I have to move here.”
The Makings of Our “Friendly Tree”
Then Taylor introduced me to some of her friends. Everyone was so nice and welcoming. I know New Yorkers don’t really have that rep, but the thing is- it’s a front. There’s a guardedness grafted from crazy people approaching you in the city, but deep down, everyone here is looking for some sort of connection.
That first week in New York City felt like a dream. I had made friends, real friends with these people almost instantly. I loved the city- from what it looked like, the food, the energy, the possibilities. And I loved being with my cousin, someone who had similar experiences as me and felt like the sister I never had.
Hard Truths
When I flew back to California, I instantly withdrew from all of my courses at Chico State University. Luckily they hadn’t yet started, so it didn’t hurt academically. What did hurt, was the inability to explain to my family this guttural knowing- this catastrophic need to move away and make such a big change to my life, when it was already so good in many ways.
I’m a very feely person. Of course I’m rational (to the best of my ability), but most times I lead with my gut feeling. I let it take me where it needs, I trust myself and also in something bigger than me, in God, perhaps the wind. That’s why, I had to listen to this feeling. It felt like a yearning, like a pull from the center of who I was. Like someone was rearranging every cloud, scribbling on every billboard, altering lyrics in songs, to tell me from every angle “this is where you need to go!”
To Wanda
I visited Taylor in late August, dropped out of school, applied to almost every school in New York City, and then I waited. In October, I visited again, made more friends, became more resolute in my decision, and fell deeper in love with the city.
In December, I was accepted to Pace University. I made one last trip to the city, to find an apartment, signed some papers, and everything was set to go. My family helped me sell my car, pack up my house, find someone to rent it to, and held me for teary goodbyes. It was a hard decision in many ways, but I had this feeling- this knowing- that it was gonna lead me to something big. So I had to “to Wanda!”
Taylor joined me in a cross country roadtrip, with my two dogs, and everything we could fit in a small SUV. We had a fun trip together, never tiring of each other. We crossed the country in four days and upon pulling up to my new apartment, reality had finally set in. In just about four months, I had uprooted my life.
Now, seven months later, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, it was all worth it! School is great, life is great, the dogs, the apartment- it’s all great. Most importantly though, this life feels like mine. I am great. I get to be in the city that makes me feel alive, I get to have friends, adventures, and an overflowing life- all because of a decision.
Happiness and Hopes for the Future
I want to write out these stories of my life, to walk myself through them and remind myself of how good it feels to be alive. How grateful I am to be able to make decisions, be healthy, surround myself with incredible people, and to learn. It’s amazing to know that I can always choose to create a new beginning. I know in my heart, there’s a million more decisions ahead of me that will bring me to beautiful places and faces! And I guess if there’s anything I could impart with someone who’s taken the time to read this, it’s that so can you. I hope that you decide to trust in the wind sometimes and say… “to Wanda!”
