Ever since I was little I've had the perfect plan set in place. Find my husband in high school, go to college together and I would become a teacher while he would become whatever he wanted. We would have three perfect kids that would be involved with lots of sports and be very intelligent at the same time.
Great plan right? In theory, yes. In reality, I leave out the speed bumps that are 1.) Finding the guy you're going to marry in high school is slim to none, 2.) finding that guy to go to college with you, also pretty slim, and 3.) nothing in life is guaranteed and we never know where our lives are going to take us. To my surprise, this plan was working to my advantage...until my senior year of high school.
Like a lot of other high schoolers, I thought I had my life together. I had been dating the same guy since my sophomore year, I had really good grades, I was cheer captain, and I knew where I was headed in life. My boyfriend and I had this perfect plan of heading to college together where we would start our future. I dreamed of how my pinning would go, and all of the cute coug themed stuff we could eventually have at our wedding. Senior year couldn't have been going better...until February hit.
After we broke up, I thought my life was over. The worst part of breaking the plans to start our future together was that while we would have similar paths, we wouldn't be together. Now, we would be strangers. I prayed my heart out things would be okay and that I would be able to do my own thing and be happy.
Of course, as people who care about each other do, we decided to give our relationship another chance. By this time, I was committed to school for the Fall, gone to orientation, signed up for housing, and set up my life for the next year. It was hard for us to prepare for our next chapters while our dreams were in separate places. We both had pressure in parts of relationship we hadn't had before and I had no idea what to do because I loved him. But, I also knew I loved my dream.
I had conversations with influential people in my life about what I should do. They always told me to, that any person you love in your life worth will support your dreams even if they can't be a part of them at that time. Someone who truly loves you will support you in whatever YOU decided to do and will not tell you you only have one option that works best for them. Once I finally understood that message, my decision was easy.
I chose school. I chose to let him go. I chose that everything I wanted in life was more important than what my heart was wanting. I chose to listen to the thoughts in my head over what was in my heart. Honestly, in that moment, I learned what love was about. It should never have to be a choice between your head and your heart. When you truly find love, these two things will go hand in hand. I learned to always follow my dreams and someday I will find someone who supports them too. Then everything in my heart will align in my head. That's the way it should be. As a firm believer in following your heart, sometimes it works out better to follow your head.
