I quit.
How do you quit something that you love? And how do you do it with tenacity and grace? This is a struggle I deal with more often than I’d like to admit and a struggle a lot of people probably have without evening realizing it. Whether it is quitting those terrible eating habits of grabbing an energy drink on your way to the barn every night or quitting that controlling relationship that left you questioning your self-worth every morning or quitting that spending habit of getting an appetizer every time you go out to eat that you always regret. Those are all things I love and all things I did not want to quit. When they weren’t making me feel miserable or guilty they left me feeling exhilarated! Energy! Love! Instant gratification! They each gave me one part of that and those were the things that I desperately wanted. But in that excitement I also gained sadness, low self-esteem, weight, financial difficulty, and much more. However, when I got to the gas station or restaurant or my significant others home, those weren’t the things I remembered. After some time, I realized I had to quit these habits. I had to find new ways to fulfill my passions in other outlets that were positive in every manner instead of “just positive enough to cover up the negative” that I had so often succumbed myself to. So I quit. Not because these things are awful, but because they were awful for me. (Note last post—saying yes to ME and being selfish, right?) So I moved on. I subbed my energy drink for flavored water, I ditched the possessive relationship to focus on myself, and I decreased my eating-out habits and focused on cooking at home. And do you know what? I loved myself for following through with those difficult decisions that ultimately gave me even more satisfaction than those substitutions did. Briefly I want to talk about my career as a teacher. Firstly by letting you know that I have planned to be a teacher since I was in the 1st grade. I started tutoring my classmates in 2nd grade, I skipped a grade in 3rd grade, I began tutoring outside of school in 7th grade, and I volunteered in a local elementary school in 11th and 12 grade. The idea of doing anything else as a career has never even crossed my mind. I have loved horses ever since I can remember and I knew that would be a lifelong hobby. So you might imagine my intrigue when I began to realize that horses could actually constitute a career. During the past 3 years of being a high school English as a Second Language teacher, I have substantiated everything I sought out to do. That is, to prove that youth are much more powerful than they realize, to encourage even the slightest potential a student exhibits, to intensely provoke love, and to give each and every student a bigger advantage in the real world than they had the previous day. I absolutely love being a teacher. However, I made the decision to quit. Yesterday I submitted my resignation letter that confirmed the ending of my time of Elkhart Central High School. Starting June 1st I will be following my heart and my instinct and my other passion of educating horses and riders and the public at large about our equine friends. Being a teacher has provided me with so much, but my heart is beckoning to relish the gratification that only a horse can provide. I’m scared and I’m clueless and probably very naïve. I have no idea what to expect other than that I am going to try my heart out every single morning when I wake up to make this work. Because I believe in it. And I believe in myself. This may crash and burn and leave me at a loss, but do you know what it won’t leave me with? Curiosity. I will never have to wonder, “what if I had tried to train horses full time?” “What if that could have taken me somewhere?” Was getting a college degree complete with tens of thousands of dollars of debt a mistake now? Was it a waste of time and money? Absolutely not. In the future I may go back to teaching if that where I feel the Lord’s guidance. I will always use the lessons learned and the experience of teaching as the backbone to teaching these horses and riders. In fact, next year I will continue my love for educating by pushing myself to learn more. I will be working with accomplished trainers and attending clinics and putting myself back at the student desk to be the best I can be. A drastically different career change 3 years in is not something I would suggest but that’s just a part of my wandering heart. My mind will always wander around and my soul will always wander out of curiosity. But nothing about me will ever wonder in regret because I put myself first. Wander, but never wonder <3 Thanks, dad, for this photo shoot and for worrying about me. I know I can do this.