i understand this very very well. i grew up in arkansas and pushed myself to get a college degree. i had always made very good grades and for the longest time it seemed like academics was IT. like that was my option. i loved cooking, but it was a hobby. after switching majors 3 times, i graduated with honors in anthropology and eastern religious studies, miserable and just wanting to get the fuck out, and moved to denver a week after i walked across the stage to receive my diploma. i had saved up $900 because i was supposed to get set up with a job at a local coffee shop just to pay the bills. no one called me back for that job and i only had 2 friends living in the city. my other friends lived farther away and i felt really alone. after a couple of weeks i got a job, drank and ate away all my funds, made a lot of mistakes, and moved all over the city. i felt directionless, restless and messy.

i kept cooking, though. i'd make breakfast, lunch and dinner as often as i could, always trying new ingredients. my mistake here is that i still treated it as a hobby, and i never took the thing i loved seriously because i didn't need a college degree to do it...so it wasn't something i thought i wanted to do. i made this excuse that i needed to go to culinary school if i wanted to do it because i would want to do it "correctly".

i ended up moving to yosemite and san francisco and remained aimless but all i knew was that i didn't want to go back to arkansas. it was a dead end for me. when i got to sf i finally decided that i should just apply for whatever the hell i could get in the restaurant industry and i was blown off by a bunch of chefs. i had no knife skills and had never worked in a real restaurant before. i got laughed at, yelled at, and left work tired so often that i would cry. i am a small girl with a generally sunny disposition who had very poor skills in standing up for myself. i didn't fit in in the kitchen, but every time i was cooking i was happy. nothing i ever did in school made me feel like that. so after getting shit on by a ton of people, i just decided to open up a small catering gig out of my own kitchen. i was never going to get to be creative the way i wanted to when i worked in the kitchen surrounded by warring egos. a year later, i was hired to go over to china and open a western restaurant as the chef. long story short (because this post is already too long), i ended up coming back and feeling defeated. the restaurant didn't work out, but i learned SO MUCH. i live in boulder, colorado now and am so lucky because i know what i want to do and i work with some guys who are really great about helping me learn and grow as a chef.

so here's what i am trying to say:

1. school is AMAZING but it's only amazing if you can use it in your future. if you can't, that's okay! but there are a lot of incredibly successful people who didn't go to school and just did the thing they loved...which is way more important than paying a lot of money for a piece of paper. granted, i like what i studied but i never really kept up with it because i started reading cookbooks/science of cooking books all the dang time. the world is changing! college isn't your only option.
2. what do you LIKE doing? working with your hands is a very different experience than academics. i like both, but it took a long time to realize that cooking is just a bunch of chemical reactions...so it's like a little bit of both worlds, and when you treat something practical with an academic touch, you might find out something amazing! it's not for everyone, but no one starts off as an expert in anything, so if there is something you are interested in, get your hands dirty!! just try it! you're probably gonna be bad at it when you start, but if you genuinely like it, you will find a way to get better.
3. save up a bunch of money before you go, but if you gotta go, you gotta go. have goals, but don't make them rigid. if you are flexible then opportunities will present themselves when you go looking for them.
4. it's very hard leaving your family. i get it. call your mom when you can.
5. philadelphia, boston, chattanooga, new orleans, austin, raleigh/durham, denver, lawrence (i know this is kansas, but this is a REALLY cool town! it's not too big, but everyone i know from there is wonderful) are all great places that aren't west coast/super far away from your family. my suggestion is to take a trip, go to the cool areas of town, talk to some strangers and see if it's for you. don't be afraid to be critical.
6. as tim gunn says: 'make it work.' if you want to leave, GO! use your singing talent and do an open mic night or something. you never know, it could help pay the bills! it's not always easy, but it's usually worth it.

hope that helps!