My Scariest Life Change Ever and I'm Making it Right Now

It was 3pm on Saturday. I went to studio to get some work done, was there for approximately 30 minutes with four other girls there and I left. I couldn't do it anymore. It was awful. I hated it. I'd had enough.

I pick up my phone as I'm walking down flights of stairs to get out of the building. As soon as I hit fresh air I call home to talk to my parents. No one answers but I try again, I really need to get this off my chest. My mom picks up and she says she was on the phone with my grandma and was doing dishes. I asked her if she had time to talk and of course she says yes. Okay I say, I have something to tell you. I want to change my major. There. I've said it. It's out in the universe. Now finally someone else knows. And then the tears come, the sobbing, can't catch my breath tears.

I'm scared, I keep saying over and over again, this is scary.  I'd been wrestling with the idea of switching for months but I couldn't bring myself to do it. This is the end of my sophomore year. I've spent two years worth of money and time in this major and now I'm throwing it all away. What am I gonna do? All I know is I can't don't wanna do this any more.
  
Then of course there were other things going through my head. I was scared because I pay for college, and that's at least one more year that I'm going to have to find a way to pay for, one more year of living costs, one more year of not being in the working world. One more year of debt that I will be in. Does changing majors make me a failure? Because that's certainly what it felt like. Like I chose the wrong major to begin with so I lost, I failed. Will it look like I'm giving up? What will the girls in the interior design program say when they see that I'm not in their classes next year? Cassi wasn't good enough? Cassi didn't work hard enough? Cassi didn't want it enough? Cassi dropped out because she couldn't take it? Cassi failed? Just the thought of anyone saying that was enough to make me feel sick to my stomach.

When I first started not enjoying my classes I'd tell myself that I could go through four years of hell to have the rest of my future in a career that I loved. And that worked, for a while. Then I realized that I didn't like my classes. I didn't like the way my teachers didn't really teach. I didn't like my projects. I wasn't particularly fond of some cliques that had formed in my very small class. I don't feel particulary accepted by certain classmates and was an outsider in the interior design 'family'. I no longer loved the idea of being an interior designer for the rest of my life. I didn't like the idea of not being great at what I was doing. I looked at my educational life and working future and didn't see one thing that I liked. And that's when I knew. 

Recently we had a St.Lawrence Speed Dating event. Yeah just saying it seems funny. We listened to Fr.Steve give a talk (that will have to be it's own post), and then had about 8 dates, 3 minutes each. At the end of the evening we had a list of the guys that were there and could circle whomever we wished and if they circled us than we'd be 'matched'. Goodness it's so much less creepy than I'm making it sound (now I'll have to do another post on it just to explain better). So I started going through the speed dates in my head and remembering what the guys I talked to were like. I liked the 'idea' of some of they guys, they were really nice and fun to talk to but sometimes you just know that you aren't compatible. You know that if you were to go on the date that you'd be lying to the both of you so you pass on it because the 'idea' of the guy is better than the reality of what you and that date would be like.

I think it's the same with me being an interior design major. I loved the 'idea' of being an interior design major. In my head it was the perfect way to mix the best of two worlds, art and business. I'd be able to go through college saying I'm an interior design major. The idea of working at an architecture firm and doing huge projects was a great one. But I think I liked the 'idea' of being an interior designer more than I would actually like to be an interior designer. It just took me a while to figure that out.

I used to genuinely want to be an interior designer. I sure as heck wasn't expecting to ever begin to not want to be an interior designer. But then again I used to genuinely enjoy eating sandwiches of pickles and ketchup between two slices of cheese when i was little. I no longer enjoy eating those. Things change. It's a fact of life. 

I don't often say this but I think Marilyn Monroe said it pretty well:

"...sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."

Now that I've told my mom and a couple friends what's going on my heart feels so much lighter. I'm amazed at how heavily this whole thing had been weighing on my heart. So I cried for 30 minutes and then I couldn't stop smiling. So this is what it feels like to surrender to God's will. I'd been praying about it a lot lately and just hoping that God would give me the strength to make this life changing decision.

I've talked about this before but God has a very unique-to-Cassi way of communicating with me. God starts by planting this little tiny thought inside my head. I tend to overthink things, it's who I am. I don't make split-second decisions and I like to weigh the pros and cons and worry worry worry. Then after I've done the worrying and weighing for weeks/months and shaking the idea of that little thought in my head, God comes up to me and slaps me in the face and I'm like whoa! And then I pull the trigger. Deep inside I know what to do but sometimes my trust isn't where it should be and I get scared until I hear Him say 'I'm right here and I've been telling you over and over again what to do. Why aren't you listening to Me?'

So this is me, listening. No I'm not going to enjoy the interior design students talking about me behind my back and no I'm not going to enjoy having to pay more money and be in school for more years. But God will provide and I will be humbled knowing that others won't think as highly of me anymore:

But he bestows a greater grace; therefore, it says: "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." - James 4:6

Before his downfall a man's heart is haughty, but humility goes before honors. - Proverbs 18:12

If you're out there and you're reading this I'd like to ask a favor. Would you please pray that everything will work out for the better? That this will help me to grow in humililty. That I will be more open to listening to and following God's will for me and that this change in majors will be for the better? Know that in return I will be praying for you.

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