Casa De Morrill

Yesterday was rough. I hadn’t gotten much sleep and I had to deal with annoying people through work and on top of it all, I got to take Sam to the vet (you know the cute one that turns into Satan at the site of the vet). Sean called me up in the morning while I was trying to multi-task too many things at work and told me that there was going to be a family gathering at the end of August in Washington. Did I want to go? Just to note, the end of August also is when classes start, LinuxWorld San Jose is, and DragonCon directly follows LinuxWorld. Talk about a rough decision.

At first, I was overjoyous at the thought of getting to go up to Washington state. I’ve never had a chance to get to any of the Northwest states, so this was a great opportunity for me to see new territory and mark one more state off my list of ones to visit. There was a small problem, though. It would mean cramming more stuff into that last 2 weeks of August.

I hesitated, unsure of how well my body would hold up against all of the travelling and no sleep and then the ability to get up the Tuesday morning after DragonCon and go to class again. Once that hesitation had wormed its way into my brain, I began to worry about money. I’m certainly not a cash-strapped, poor student by any means. But, I do have to be careful about living within my means. If I build up any debt on my credit card, I try to pay it off as quickly as possible and I do my best to only spend how much ever I make each paycheck. Because of all of the travelling, I was worried that I’d start to exceed my means. So, I told Sean that I wouldn’t be able to go. He tried to convince me otherwise, offering to split the price of the ticket and then even offering to pay for it himself. I just couldn’t convince myself that it was necessary enough to go.

The thought stayed with me, though. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the idea of going to Washington out of my mind. I felt it was unfair. I mean, the one time that I finally get a chance to go and the only thing holding me back was money. I moped about that afternoon, upset at myself for turning down the opportunity and upset at the world for not having presented a more ideal situation. That evening, though, I was trying to find a ticket for Sean (I’m really good at hunting down obscenely cheap tickets) and I stumbled across a really good price. Sean’s parents had offered to pay for his, so he pushed me to split the cost with him for mine. It was such a great chance. He wanted to show me all of these places and I’d get to meet his family. I finally gave in and we bought the tickets. I would just go up to Seattle and then fly from there to San Jose on the following Monday to make LinuxWorld.

It felt great buying that ticket. I felt that I had truly made the right decision, rather than just chickening out and whining about how unfair the world was. I took the chance and I didn’t regret it. On my way to dance class, it was still raining from earlier, but right before I got off of the interstate, a rainbow appeared. As I got onto the parkway, the whole rainbow was showing. The next thing I knew, I saw one end of the rainbow. The other was right at the dance studio. Now, I’m not a particularly superstitious person, but getting to see both ends of a rainbow was a real treat. And not just any rainbow. It was a double rainbow. I felt like I was coming out of the gloom of self-pity (sorry for the horrible metaphor) and it was a sign that I had made the right decision.

I woke up this morning thinking it was all just a dream, but when I read my e-mail, there it was. An itinerary to Seattle/Tacoma, Washington. I’m really going, and I’m finally taking a nice vacation with Sean. I think in a lot of ways he’s my treasure at the other side of the rainbow. So, taking a chance really does pay off every once in a while.