9:35 p.m. - Sunday, Mar. 07, 2004
Big Decision Day
Heeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! Raaaaaaahhhhhhhhhahhhhhhhhhhhh! Aaaaaaaahhhhhh haaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! Hooooooooooooooooo!!!

I just made the biggest decision of my life.

I am not training as a teacher next year. I am going to do something mad and crazy. I am not going to get on this great linear treadmill of life. I am not sliding direct from cradle to grave via career and babies. I am not going to begrudge my children’s opportunities through envy. When my 18 year old son or daughter announces that they have decided to go and build orphanages in Peru rather than go to university, I will be able to hug them and tell them about the wonderful time I had working with AIDS sufferers in South Africa, or teaching English in China, or saving turtles on the barrier reef.

I am going to be a PERSON, with history and exciting stories.

I am over the moon. To get away from this culture and this materialism. To see life, and see the world and live. I will come back and be ready to settle down, train for a career, life with my boy. To be an adult. But I am not wasting my time with no commitments to just begin settling down. My itchy feet need scratching.

Mia is deeply sceptical. I don’t mind. To Mia, the idea of withdrawing my application to teach come this September is bonkers. I love Mia, but she cannot understand this side of me. When I tried to explain why Bob and I do not want to live close to our parents, but stake out another bit of this country for our selves, she put this down to Bob and me not coming from the same place. Of course we couldn’t live close to both our parents! That’ll be it!

Bob is heavenly, wonderfully, beautifully supportive. I love that man. His only words were, ‘If you’ve decided to do it, do it. Don’t mess around and always regret it.’ And my mother thinks it’s exactly the right decision. I am blessed with parents, who carry, and support, and love, and smile. Angels. I know so many mothers who would throw their hands up in horror at a 21 year old wishing to delay her entry into the rat race.

So that’s today’s terrifying, liberating, amazing decision. Tomorrow I plan to find a cure for AIDS before lunchtime.

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