About a year ago, I found myself in what felt like the worst period of my young adult life. I was 24 and had just lost my job due to a combination of my dwindling motivation and a boss who couldn't stand me.
I was disparaged to put it lightly. I cried about 7 times a day and found myself eating my weight in Ben & Jerry's Half Baked ice cream nightly. I went on vacation with my boyfriend and promised myself that upon return, I would get it together and get a new job.
In an instant, that all changed. I woke up on the second to last day of my vacation and opened my Facebook feed to find it littered with posts from old high school friends that read "R.I.P. Nikki" or "Gone too soon."
Nikki? MY Nikki?
The same girl who made me call her Nickelz throughout high school (which I hated, but did it because I loved her). The Nikki I had seen only a week prior? I was in denial for the first 45 minutes until I got a call from another friend crying in hysterics and disbelief. It was true.
I read news article after news article about the accident, about how she left behind her young son Eden and a grieving mother. A mother who used to call my cell phone repeatedly in high school when we stayed out too late because Nikki would shut hers off. I was floored, heart broken.
Wishing whatever power exists had taken me, someone who hated every facet of her life right now, instead of such an enterprising, intelligent, beautiful young mother. Suddenly losing my job felt like the least important thing in the world.
I got together with an incredible group of friends from my formative years and we started a GoFundMe page to help her mom cover funeral costs. We also had a mini high school reunion in her memory, but we all knew none of that could bring her back.
The next month I was plagued with feelings of inadequacy. I felt like I was wasting my life and didn't understand why someone with such a promising one could be taken away. I kept my promise to myself and applied for a few retail management jobs, getting a pleasant level of response. And yet, something just didn't feel right.
I kept thinking back to that last night I saw Nikki and the conversation we had. We hadn't seen each other in almost a year. We were those kinds of best friends that could go months without talking but see each other and have it feel as if not even a minute had passed.
I asked her how work was and how her son was doing, commenting on how big he was getting. I'll never forget the light in her eyes when she looked at me and simply said "Jessic (yes, she always called me Jessic), being a mom is real cool."
When she started to talk about work however, she expressed her disdain and unhappiness and pledged right then and there that she was going to quit when she returned from her own vacation. I remember asking her how she could just decide something so major with no regard for the fallback. She said to me "If you don't love what you do, why the hell are you doing it?"
Those words would continue to ring in my ears. I lost sleep. I thought about every job I had the chance to take and could only think of her, inspiring me to LOVE what I do. And thus began my journey.
It been almost a year now since I enrolled in school--again. I remember thinking, "egad, 24 is way to late to be a college freshman," but that trepidation quickly faded. Starting over was scary, don't get me wrong. I still have days where I wonder whether or not I made the right choice. Whether or not I'm just trying to delay growing up.
But at the end of every difficult day, I think of Nikki. I remind myself that if she doesn't have the right to follow her path, I sure as hell will not lose the opportunity to follow mine.
Second chances only come when you allow yourself to accept them. If ever life takes you to a point where you think you should give up, think of me, think of Nikki. If this experience a year ago taught me anything, its that life is far too short to look back on regrets. Follow your dreams, reinvent yourself, start anew, because there is always Take 2.
In Loving Memory of Oniqua "Nikki" Philip