"Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same..."

(title quote: The Fray, All At Once)

"Throw it away
Forget yesterday
We'll make the great escape
Won't hear a word they say
They don't know us anyway."
- Boys Like Girls, The Great Escape

I have often heard the saying "God never closes a door unless he opens a window." In my life, I have also found that very rarely does that window open without a door being closed. We don't hear that saying very often, if ever. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, I'm just saying that it's as true as the more common version.

"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." - Charles du Bois

I have found, throughout my life, that wide open decisions are the exception rather than the rule. What I'm trying to say is that, most of the time, when I have a difficult decision to make between several options that appear roughly equal, something usually comes along and helps me make those decisions.

“The great thing is, if one can, to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's "own" or "real" life. The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life." - C.S. Lewis

Ever since I found out that I would probably be getting an offer of employment from the game store, I have been extremely torn about whether to stay in my current job, which I like very much, or to move to this new opportunity, which would take me away from working with music and open the possibility of seeing my former students and their parents more often, but would pay more and reconnect me with one of my closest friends from my high school years.

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I arrived at work today, without having heard anything about the writing job, which I still have not heard anything else about (I emailed them when I arrived home tonight), my store manager informed me that with the mall hours being cut after Labor Day (we are currently open until 10 p.m., but beginning Tuesday will only be open until 9 p.m.), my hours would be greatly reduced, out of necessity. He told me he tried to do everything he could, but just couldn't give me more than 20-25 hours per week at most. Our profits are apparently down, and his allotment of hours has been cut due to the combination of those factors (mall hours and profits). He expressed an interest in trying to work out an arrangement with the other local store, so that I might be able to get 20 hours at each store, but last time that was suggested, it was not greeted with much enthusiasm by the manager at the other store. He told me that he likes me a lot, that I'm intelligent, and a great worker, I relate well to the customers, and I'm organizationally oriented. He relied heavily on my organizational skills to rearrange the stock in our store for the best traffic patterns. Plus, he just likes me. However, he has to cut hours, and one of his assistants is having his hours cut as well.

"The future has a way of arriving unannounced." - George Will

I told him about my offer with the game store, and he was supportive and understanding. He told me that he would like to keep me on the payroll, so that I could work for him whenever my schedule permitted, for extra money for me, and to keep a good worker in his store. I agreed that I would like to do that, schedule permitting. Thus, it looks like this door, while not being closed tight and latched, is at least being narrowed to a small opening, so that I may now look out the window that has opened. It looks like that part of my decision making process has been simplified at least. I will probably now be joining my old friend Chad at his company. I am really starting to feel that I am being steered, eventually, to the new beginning in the new city, though it would likely not even be available until next spring.

"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." - Bertold Brecht

Thank you all for your support, thoughts and prayers. I am anxiously awaiting word of my other opportunity. I am finding comfort, as I often do, in the lyrics of The Fray. I'm not sure why, but they seem quite relevant to me at this point.

I have to rehearse tomorrow morning, as I agreed to sing on Sunday morning, though I now found out that I am working Sunday afternoon. After rehearsing, I will be going straight to work. I wanted to share my update and now I must be off to bed. The past few weeks have been tiring, keeping me on my toes, not allowing me to settle into anything. Right now, I feel like that's a good thing.

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." - Alan Cohen