A change in direction

I’ve had a complete change of perspective this year. Over the last three months I’ve made choices for myself that will likely send me in a direction completely different to where I thought that I wanted to go.

My grandfather died six weeks ago. It wasn’t completely unexpected; he’d been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He was expected to live for another six months, yet he died of a heart attack. There’s probably a huge number of contributing factors to my change of mind, but I suspect that this is one of the biggest.

I guess that everybody must obsess over their mortality. I know I do. I have spent a good number of sleepless nights contemplating the big, ugliness of death. I’m not a religious person. At times like this I wish I was. It must be comforting to have faith.

What I’ve been thinking recently is that when I die, what do I want to have achieved? I found myself no longer caring if I get impeccable marks, if I go on to have an excellent career. I don’t want to be the woman that never sees her family because she spends her life working.

This isn’t a useful trail of thought to be experiencing during my final year of university. Everything is harder this year and more intense. I should be working harder, quite the opposite to what I have been doing.

I’m going to finish my degree, I’ve come to far not to. As for next year, I’m not going to stay. I intended to do honors but I’m no longer convinced that is what I want.

What I want is to start my life with Jade, something I can’t do at the moment because I spend all my time at uni and not enough time working. I want to write a book. I want to open a book café. I want to know that when I die I will have spent my life doing what I wanted to do, not what I thought that I should.

My grandfather was hugely proud of me when he was alive. He loved to tell people how well I was doing and how much I was going to achieve. I worry that this change in direction would have disappointed him.