At 23 I Moved Back Home, Switched Careers, And Got Cancer–Here’s To Seeing What Adventures 24 Will Bring
November 18th, 2018
Around this time last year, I was dog sitting for a family in Charlotte. I woke up on a Thursday morning, let the dogs out, put the last suitcase in Judy (a mint condition 2002 gold Saturn) and drove to D.C. There, I would spend Friendsgiving with my friend and her roommates and the following day I would head to Baltimore to pick up Morgayne from school. From there, we would head back to New York where I would be moving back in with my parents….yay?
All the while thinking, how did I wind up here?
Last September, a few months before my 23rd birthday, I got an email from Odyssey saying that they had a Content Strategist position open. At the time, I was teaching in Charlotte but I thought it couldn’t hurt to respond back to the email and learn more about the job. 3 awkward interviews later and a lot of bullshitting on my part, I got offered the job. To this day, I am still surprised these people hired me and trust me, I have made that very clear to them.
It should’ve been a hard decision to make. How could I leave my current job as a second-year teacher? What was I going to do about the studio apartment I had just moved into in July? How was I going to say goodbye to all the friends I had met? And how the heck was going to get all my crap all the way to New York?
For some reason, those questions didn’t hit me right away. Sometimes I feel like I still have not processed that at the beginning of the school year I just up and left 27 kindergarteners who needed me…I know, I know not a great move on more part but here I am.
The only thing I asked myself was if I would regret it if I didn’t take the job at Odyssey? My answer to that was yes. I knew that if I didn’t take the job I would always be asking myself “what if?”
Here’s what I know would have happened if I didn’t take the job:
I know that if I didn’t take the job I wouldn’t have gone to see a gastroenterologist about the abnormally large mass growing on my ovary. I probably would’ve waited until I came home for Thanksgiving instead of going in July.
I know that if I didn’t take the job and finally went to a gastroenterologist in Charlotte, my cancer would most likely be a lot further along than Stage 1.
I know that if I didn’t take the job I wouldn’t have had my parents advocating for me every step of the way making sure this mass was removed ASAP.
I know that if I didn’t take the job and found out I had cancer I would not have been able to go through the treatments in Charlotte.
I know that if I didn’t take the job, after finding out my diagnosis, I would have had to scramble over the summer after finding out the diagnosis to move home and get my shit together.
I know that if I didn’t take the job maybe my situation would be a lot worse right now.
But I did take the job.
Maybe there have been times when I was nostalgic for my local bakery in Charlotte that had the best cheddar biscuits.
Maybe there have been times where I missed going on mom walks on the light rail.
Maybe there have been times where I wanted to head to Sycamore Brewing on Friday after work with my old coworkers to vent about our days.
Maybe there have been times when I missed my students…even the ones who threw chairs at me and pooped their pants.
But now, as I approach my 24th birthday and reflect on the year that has passed, I am so damn lucky that I am a ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ type of person and on a whim decided to take the job.
And that one decision to take the job, to move back home maybe, just maybe, ended up saving my life.
So here’s to turning to 24 but being an 84-year-old at heart. Here’s to living at home, working from home, steadfastly remaining single as Pringle, starting paddle lessons, learning to knit, watching too many Hallmark movies, reading too many psych thrillers that keep me up at night, baking too many pies to add to my muffin top, and finishing my last few rounds of chemo.
I may not be like a typical 24-year-old but at least I get to live to see 24!