Turning Point

‘Twas the night before Father’s Day and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except Hank, my incorrigible little mutt, dropping his tennis ball at my feet or into my lap because that is what he does when I’m trying to focus on something other than him.  Boy, was I focusing.

In my inbox from early February was an e-mail from Le Cordon Bleu with their brochure that I never had the heart to delete, and follow-up e-mail in April asking if I was still interested in their program.  Whatever it was that prompted me to go back to those messages that night is still a mystery – my suspicion is that, given that it was a Saturday in late spring, I had spent the day working in my yard which always provided hours of contemplation until a snake or nest of yellow jackets sent me in a screaming run towards the house.  But The Big Idea struck – a thought so brilliant yet so ridiculously obvious that I wasn't sure if I was a genius or a complete idiot.

Getting to Le Cordon Bleu would not require 4 years of savings if I didn't have a mortgage to pay while I was away.  As a matter of fact, if I sold my house and most of its contents right away and moved in with my parents, the money from the sale plus whatever would have gone towards my mortgage could instead be going towards the LCB!

To be honest, that idea of selling my house was not completely novel, but moving in with my parents was never an option.  The issue was not with my parents – I didn't want to move in with anyone.  Up to that point I had lived alone for over ten years and I absolutely loved it.  I was a fiercely independent female equivalent of a borderline hermit.

Additionally, I adored my sweet little old house – I had spent the last five years redecorating it, updating it, and slaving over making it perfectly mine.  While most of my furniture and other décor wasn't expensive or particularly special (probably half of it was acquired from my uncle’s estate auctions over the past decade), it all came together to make up part of my big fat comfort zone.

Then there was my job – a well-paying full-time job in which I had created a niche as a subject matter expert and where they provided me with health insurance and bi-weekly paychecks – a security blanket of sorts in a rather unstable economy.  Sure, no job is ever guaranteed to continue indefinitely, but it felt safe and again, comfortable, even if it wasn't terribly fulfilling.  At least it paid the bills and I never had to wonder from where my next meal was coming.  Added into the mix were years of graduate work and expenses – almost my entire adult life up until now had been concentrated on developing myself as a mathematician and an analyst.

Over the past few months I have often pondered what motivates change, probably because so many people have asked me how or why I made my decision, and my conclusion is simple: the level of desire. We might hate being overweight, but if our desire for the foods that we would have to give up exceed our desire to lose weight, we will stay the same size (or grow).  We might dislike being in debt, but if we value owning a nice car or a big house or the latest electronic devices more than being debt-free, we will stay in debt.  Scripture is full of examples, such as the rich young ruler who desired to follow Christ but not as much as he desired his wealth (Matthew 19:16-26), or the apostle Paul who realized that he would have to count everything else as "rubbish" and "loss" in order to gain Christ (Philippians 3:8).

Just to be clear, while I am often guilty of wasting time, I did not consider my life up to this point as "wasted" despite the need for a change.  If it weren't for graduate school I wouldn't have my job, and if it weren't for my job I wouldn't have the money necessary to fund this new venture.  When I add to those things the relationships and experiences that were all integral in developing my character, I simply cannot regret the past or put less value on it than my future - everything goes into making up life's tapestry and I am grateful for all of it.

But on that evening of June 15^th a sort of switch flipped in my brain. Suddenly my house was filled only with “stuff,” and it was just another house in just another neighborhood, and I was working just another job on the tiny little blip in eternity that was my dwindling earthly life.  Clinging to those things was creating self-perpetuated hindrances, holding me back from something far more important.  At that moment giving up the house, the furniture, the job, the independence, and the security blanket seemed incredibly easy because my desire to go to culinary school superseded all of it.  The funny thing about making those "sacrifices" was that it no longer felt sacrificial in light of my greater goal.

For the next few hours I worked feverishly, filling spreadsheets with more scenarios: “If I sold my house in x months for y dollars and made z dollars off of my furniture, then combined with current and projected savings I would have enough money to go to LCB by…”

[Fortunately, my spreadsheet addiction paid off because I had an existing one for my mortgage after previously deciding that I would try to pay it off early, and it told me for any given day exactly how much the payoff would be.  Who’s the nerd now?]

... March 24, 2014.  I stared at it on my calendar for a moment before checking and double-checking my numbers, but it seemed entirely realistic.  I could do this… I was going to do this!  Looking back, I can see myself sitting on the sofa, a large beam of glittering white light shining down on me as somewhere a choir sang out a sustained “Aaaaaaah!” and Hank tugged angrily at my pajama leg to get my attention.

By then it was already after midnight and long past the time that I should have been in bed.  The last thing that I wanted to do was sleep just as my plans were taking shape, but I resisted the urge to pick up my phone and call all of my family and friends and share the news.  That night I slept surprisingly well, and although I expected to wake up to the practicality of a well-rested brain telling me that I was certifiably insane, I instead jumped out of bed that morning with an excited energy that comes only with knowing the world’s best secret.  Keeping it to myself was already becoming a burden and I couldn't help throwing out this quick little Facebook status update before darting off to church:

My sister’s family had decided to make a surprise trip down from Georgia to celebrate Father’s Day with my dad.  Not wanting to take over all of dad's special day, I waited until after lunch when we were gathered at my parents’ house.  My mom had already read my status update and again asked what the “crazy idea” was.  Taking a deep breath I blurted out: “I’m going to sell my house and everything that I own and go to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris*!”

[*For the sake of full disclosure, I actually said, "New Zealand."  My reasons were pretty profound – I heard that they didn't have bugs and I thought that the scenery in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was really cool, plus it was a little cheaper.  After a few days, though, I decided that if I was going to do this thing I might as well go all the way; therefore Paris it was!]

Whenever I seek to know if a big decision that I’m making is aligned with the Lord’s will for me, usually one step is to discuss it with my parents.  They have an uncanny and, when I'm feeling contrary, annoying way of being right.  My trepidation was a little high at that point because I knew that if they expressed any kind of doubt over my decision, it would automatically create doubt in my own mind.  Their reaction, though, was overwhelming excitement and support and it was followed by a flurry of future plans and ideas.

Secrecy was still important because it was a little early to be turning in my notice at work and the plan was young enough that the possibility of failure was high - imagine THAT status update - but I did begin privately leaking the news to a few choice relatives and friends.  The majority of them seemed almost as happy for me as I was which only served to feed my enthusiasm.  By the end of the week I had a “For Sale by Owner” sign proudly displayed in my front yard.

Obviously my house would sell quickly, right?  RIGHT?!?