Yellow Light

When I was three, I wanted to be a princess. I was obsessed with horses and although I never got to ride one, the back of our old couch got plenty worn from me pretend riding it all the time. I wanted the prince, the castle, the fairy tale dwarves, and the animals who spoke to me. I wanted it all.

Then I turned five and I decided I wanted to be a "vegetarian". What I was trying to say was veterinarian but my little brain couldn't process what the word was. But that family I've talked so much about understood what I was trying to say. I loved animals and at the time I thought you just had to play with them when they were sick and that would make them better. Then I found out that you had to go to more school than was required and I was done with that.

When I was nine I started to play basketball. So naturally my next dream was to be a professional basketball player just like Katie Smith. I went to Lynx games, trained extra hard, went to every single camp imaginable all to make my dream come true. Then I found out that I wanted to do something other than that. Naturally.

Those in between years are fuzzy. I never thought about being a firefighter or an astronaut. But I know that I had goals and dreams. But high school was filled with being forced to make decisions about your future. But lets be honest, you don't know what you want to do with the rest of your life your freshman year of high school. It just isn't going to happen, unless you're one of those amazing people who has life figured out to a tee. I have yet to meet someone like that, but I admire you. So I started out my baby year at Marquette wanting to be the top international business woman in the world. Then I decided it was a load of crap. Screw desks and planes and motels and itchy business suits and men trying to faze you out. I'm not built to sit behind a desk. So I switched to Social Work. Went to the intro class I was required to take and got so depressed about the state of our country that I quit that too. So I landed on Criminology. I felt comfortable. There were lots of things I could do with it and lets be honest, I'm a little excited about the prospect of learning how to shoot a gun. I don't know if I want to be a cop or an agent or a probation officer or any of that. I'm getting the degree because its a requirement to go anywhere in our world today. But who knows where I'm going to be in five years. Someone told me I would make a good prosecutor. I asked them "Why because I'm a bitch?" And they replied, "No. Because you actually care"

So where am I going with this you ask? Let me tell you. Does you heart ever drop or your stomach turn over when your approaching a stop light and its green, then as fast as you can blink, its yellow. There is that moment when you have to decide if you want to beat or surrender to it. Now naturally there are some instances where you wont make it. But I'm taking about being in the exact spot where you can floor it or stop it. And your nervous. What if I don't make it? Should I stop? Do I have enough time? Will it be worth it? To me, stop lights represent life. There are moments when it brings you to your knees and forces you to surrender. Then are those times where its giving you the go ahead to maintain your course. Then there are the times when it proposes options. And its like its testing you. Playing chicken with you. Question is are you going to play it safe even though you know you can make it? Or are you going to keep your trajectory full speed ahead. Life presented me with a yellow light almost a year ago to the day. Am I going to make the leap into the unknown, or am I going to shell out thousands upon thousands of dollars to play it safe. I took that challenge head on and floored it. I am coming to the end of my chapters of college. I'm facing that yellow light and it could go either way. My heart is pumping, my palms are sweaty and there's an incessant knot in my stomach constantly pestering me to decide. The beauty of the situation is that there is still time. I can hit the breaks or I can push the gas. The excitement about a yellow light is being able to choose.