At Long Last

Yes, at long last. It seems like years since the talks started. The ones about what I should do with my life and where I should go to college. (I remember very clearly in sixth grade, spending the night with a friend and we stayed up all night discussing college plans.)
Then about a year and a half ago, I settled on not going to college at all. My parents went back and forth on supporting that decision and I could never really tell where they were going to be from day to day. I've heard all the remarks, or so it would seem, from others in the community or at church about how I was going to waste my life by not going to college. To be fair, when I wanted to go to school, I got plenty of comments about how I was disobeying God's will for me. Still, I maintained that I was not going because you don't really have to have a degree to teach children music lessons.
And last night came. I spent an hour and a half talking to a friend of mine who is at college for music. He encouraged me, prayed with me, and said that he'd support me any way I went and that whatever I ended up doing, I should be sure of God's will. He pointed out that it may be God's will that I go to college to prepare for what He intends me to do. After finishing up the conversation, I went to bed, at about ten thirty. I lay in bed, wrestling in prayer... and there seemed no getting away from the feeling that I needed to go to college. Whenever I said "but GOD! I don't want to!" I felt that I was running away and avoiding Him.
Exasperated, I pulled up my computer. It was three in the morning my time, and four in Arizona. Amazingly enough, (or maybe not so, he is a college student) my friend was still online. I told him about what had happened after five hours of praying. I expected him to tell me that I should go to bed and think about it again in the morning. However, that wouldn't have been very like him.
So, today, I've spent almost all my time researching colleges and beginning to work on essays and applications.
Funnily enough, it's never really been in question what my degree will be. Only which instrument. And I've decided to go for piano, after all, I'm better on that than on violin. A minor in creative writing is also pretty much an order. We'll see where I go from here.
At least I feel like I've actually arrive somewhere after all this time.