Decision

I didn’t take the job, and I must say that I’m pretty stinkin’ darn proud of myself.

I met with the wonderful man who offered me the job, and it became more and more apparent that the job would have been a great match for my availability and qualifications. I kept shaking my head in disbelief as he agreed to my hours, my hourly rate, and my request to be flexible with hours if needed. His office is in between T’s new school and our home – so close that I could have gone to the grocery on my lunch hour, eaten lunch at home and thrown a load of laundry in to boot.

BUT…

it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

That’s kind of a big deal, as Rob affirmed.

I’ve recently come to the realization that I want to help families navigate this huge, unruly system of the autism world. I get excited when I think about this. The more I thought about this other job, my heart sank. It just wasn’t passing the tummy test. It occurred to me along the way that perhaps this job offer was a little test for me – would I take this job for the money & convenience, or turn it down? Do I want this new career path badly enough to pass up this other job? And it turned out that I really want to explore this new venture.

I called him the first thing the next morning, and he was disappointed, but immediately pulled out his list on contacts and gave me the phone number and name of a person he knows who just happens to work for an organization that does exactly what I want to do, and told me to use his name when I introduce myself. Wow.

So I’m on to the next step. I left a voice mail for her within 20 minutes of that phone call. I’ve even decided that I’m going to have someone build a website for my vocal studio. Yes, my vocal studio. I sang at our new church Sunday night, and darn it, it felt really, really good. That got me thinking even more about what I could do to earn some money and have something else in my life other than goat yogurt, methyl B-12 injections and crazy diets.

I sing. I teach voice lessons. And I want to help other families with new autism diagnoses.

Forward, march.