#TheSW30: Day 7; Everything We Got Is Everything We Need

Day 7: Where you are in your life vs. where you thought you would be at this point.

Hi.  My name is Michelle and I am a lyric geek.  My favorite band has a song called Heaven that contains the lines "Maybe I should take my time and build this life by my own design, with no direction and it's in between everything I love, and everything I need."  That would pretty much be my response today's challenge.

In many respects, I am exactly where I thought I would be at this point in my life.  In college, I listened to the WNCI Morning Zoo religiously (partially because the station I worked at in college carried them as the morning show in my hometown and I had a 40 minute commute between home and school.)  Somewhere I in the middle of my junior year I decided that's what I wanted to do with my life...get up in the middle of the night/booty crack of dawn to make people laugh on their way to work/class.  In other words, I set of goal of doing morning radio one day.  Through the grace of God (and me busting my ass for years trying to balance school/work) Keke plucked me out of Northeast Ohio and gave me my shot at it right out of college.  For the past four years, I've been living my dream and have had the privilege of getting to know our incredible listeners in a pretty damn cool city.  Professionally, I'm exactly where I thought I'd be at this point and I'm incredibly grateful that it happened so quickly.

My love life is radically different than I thought it'd be though.  When I left home, I'd been dating someone for a year.  His employment situation wasn't optimal, so I was hoping he'd take a chance on me and move to Boise.  He didn't.  We did the long distance thing for two years.  It was easy at first.  Skype dates.  Long phone calls.  But as I got busier at work and he eventually got a full time job our schedules didn't sync up.  Our calls would be at 5 o'clock Boise time while he was driving home from work and to be honest, when I get home at 3:30 I rather have been running, napping or cooking my dinner.  It became a hassle to talk when it was convenient for him.  I got to see him once a year at Christmas (he came here once, it never seemed like it was a priority.)  Inside I knew we were growing apart.  I wouldn't say it out loud, but inside I felt it. We ended up getting engaged anyway.  Once I had that ring on my finger everything changed.  Come home.  Break your contract.  Work part time.  Pick this wedding date (it was April of all months, in a year where I was still under my first contract with the station...I couldn't possibly make it home to get married on that date.)  The more pressure I felt, the more I craved freedom.  I didn't want to give up my life and full time job in Boise.  I worked too hard to get here to give it all up.  I started to resent him and ended up making a not so faithful decision.  Within two weeks of it, I ended my engagement and turned the page on my "happy ending."  My ex-fiance had been in someway looking out for me for seven years, so I was terrified about what happened next (karma was a bitch btw) but I just couldn't go through with a wedding when I knew I'd hate myself forever if I just gave up my life in Boise to do things his way.  Needless to say I thought I'd be happily married at this point instead of running through the string of really messy relationships/situations I've had since then.

Does that make me sad?  Hell no.  I'd choose my true love, Boise, 100% of the time. It may have been a little messy getting to this point in my life, but I did it my way so that I could have everything I love and need in my 103.5 KISS FM family and incredible group of friends.  In Life, Love and a Dash Of Sass Mandy says it's okay to lose your way.  Sometimes it takes a wrong turn to get you to the right place.  I'm a living example of it because when I lost my way, I started to find who I am as a young woman.