Blogtember - When Your Life Took a Turn

I'm not participating in that many days of Blogtember, but when I saw the prompt for today, I knew I wanted to do it.

You know how you have some moments in your life that seem super inconsequential at the time, but then when you think about them when you're older, you realize how significant they are? I had one of those my freshman year of college. It was the night I found out I had been hired to be an RA.

I was sitting in the floor of my dorm room talking to Kelsey when my friend Kyle came by. We had done our RA interviews on the same day, and he came up to tell me that he had gotten his hire letter that afternoon. He wanted to walk with me to get mine, but if I didn't get hired anywhere, I didn't want to be around a ton of people. I walked over to the mail center, got my letter, and walked back to my dorm to open it.

Let me tell you, the dorm I lived in freshman year was kind of a dump. It was fine for me, because it's where all my friends lived that year, but I was excited to (hopefully) live in a different dorm the next year. So I opened the letter. I saw the "congratulations!" first, and quit reading. I excitedly told Kelsey that I got the job, and of course, the first thing she said was "which building?" I hadn't even looked. I picked the letter back up and finished reading. I had been hired for the same building I was living in that year.

I was pretty disappointed. I was happy to get the job, but seriously? There are twenty residence halls on campus. I get hired back to go to the SAME ONE? Ugh.

I had no idea that I would go on to work for that supervisor in three different positions over the next five years, including one professional position where I'd figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Or that I'd meet my friend Jenna. Or that I'd start babysitting his kids.

And I also had no idea that when I'd go over to his house for his son's first birthday party in December 2009, I'd meet his cousin, Garrett.

All because of one job, and one offer letter that I read one random Tuesday night after a walk to Tate Street Coffee.

I love that quote from The Alchemist because it encapsulates our relationship so well. If one tiny little thing had been different, our paths never would have crossed. If I had turned down the job, or gotten an offer for a different building, or if i had gone to a different university, or if he had to work and didn't make it down, none of this would have happened. None of it.

Craziness.