Monday, May 09, 2005

Sleepless in Silicon Valley

So, after much deliberation and bureaucratic wrangling, I have been offered an actual job. No paper and no dollar sings, but it's mine if I want it. It's the kind of job I've been looking for for years, lots of growth potential, good pay, great benefits, wonderful working environment, and the kind of work I want to do (i.e. little to no actual testing, but lots of planning and strategic work).

And I finally have something like a reason to stay here. At least for awhile.

Add this to all of the other factors in the decision matrix, and you get lots of sleepless nights, lots of confusion, and more tears than I want to admit too.

So what do I do? I could try to defer my admissions to W&M for a year, work hard, pay off more bills and save up cash, finish this project and watch it blow everyone away, see if this relationship thing could really be something, and hunt down more and better financial aid in the process. Or, I could suck it up and carry on with my move as planned.

On the one hand, I could use the extra time to find funds for school and wouldn't feel like I was leaving something half done behind me. On the other, I might be staying here out of fear and more wrong reasons than I can count. I can go now and move on with life, resigning myself to being alone for the foreseeable future, or slow down a little and see if I might have more of a future in this area than I thought.

There are a lot of advantages to staying. It's just my motivation I question. How can I be sure I am thinking clearly when I spent most of last night sleepless and grieving for something I have not yet lost?

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