There is no try

I went back and visited my old workplace today. It was the first time I had visited in quite some time, so I told everyone about my big decision to defer at the PhD program. There was a reason I waited so long . . . I had been scared to tell my former boss. He was one of the people who wrote me a letter of recommendation. As is always the case when I talk to him, he was extremely nice and understanding about it. He still thinks I should go, though. He stressed that there are a lot of other things you can do with a PhD besides academia. I talked with a couple of other former coworkers for a while, and many of them had opinions similar to what people told me during my decision process: why not give it a try, it'll be good for you, you can always leave with a masters degree. I was beginning to have flashbacks to March-June. My conversation with one person in particular mirrored my thought process during that three-month period. As much as I enjoy hearing other people's perspectives on the matter, I was not much enjoying that trip down memory lane. But what can you expect from talking to academics about academia, haha.

As far as the "give it a try" argument . . . the reason why that wasn't enough to get me to go through with the program was because what "it" refers to is graduate school. But graduate school is not what I was afraid of. It's the career path afterward, and there's no way to "give it a try" before the 5-6 years of grad school.

I've also had trouble with "give it a try" advice when it comes to the sexuality issue. Partially because I don't even know where to begin. Go to a gay bar? Use a website? Plus there's the knowledge that if I finally did "try" something, there's no "un-trying" it. I need to get over that and learn to accept that it's okay to test the water. That just because you stick your foot in the shallow end doesn't mean you're committed to swimming laps.

At least I've gotten a lot of practice telling people a difficult truth about myself and overcoming fear of disappointing them in order to do it. Every time I've told someone about my decision to defer, it was like "coming out" in a way. To a lesser degree, of course. If my other issue comes to that, at least I'll be somewhat prepared.