Have you ever felt lost in life? Been at a fork in the road and wondered in which direction should you go? Wondered if you were doing that one thing  you were really meant to do?

I have.

Maybe that’s the position you’re in now. If so, know that you’re not alone.

My journey occurred over time. Almost a year, to be exact.

I was working at a hospital as a histology technologist. It was a job I enjoyed. The pay was respectable, the hours were flexible when I needed them to be, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

I wanted to be a writer.

I began to toy with the idea of cutting back my hours at work. The possibility was exciting. One day, I casually mentioned to my supervisor that I was thinking about working part-time and asked if that would be a possibility. She was fine with that. My laboratory director was not. So, I put it off for a while.

I later found myself getting frustrated with my job and at times, my co-workers. Years of waking up at an ungodly hour for work everyday had me totally sleep-deprived and was taking its toll on me. I began to snap at my children when they came to me for help with homework or to quiz them one last time for an upcoming test (which, since they had soccer practice was usually around 10:00pm). That was not the mother I wanted to be.

My husband often joked that I was a “Weekend Wife.” I was too tired to watch shows or spend quality time with him during the week but on Friday, I felt like a whole new person. That was not the wife I wanted to be.

Have you been there?

I knew something had to change. Not only for the sake of my family, but also for me.

At that point, my husband and I seriously began to discuss the option of me quitting my job. He was all for it. He knew writing was what I really wanted to do.

It took me a few more months but I finally gave my official notice in November of 2014. I agreed to stay on until a suitable replacement was found. My last day was Tuesday, March 17, 2015.

Although it was a difficult and scary decision to leave my job, I’m glad I did. Doing so provided me with the opportunity to be a better wife and mother, and the ability to do what I love.

Was it an easy road? No. Were there sacrifices that had to be made? Most definitely. But I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering “what if?”

If you’re feeling lost and wondering in which direction you should go, I leave you with these words by Robert Frost in “The Road Not Taken:”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Which path are you going to take?