Dilemma

I am faced with a dilemma this evening. I find myself facing a situation that I thought I'd relish, but instead I am wracked with indecision.

I'm in grad school right now for library science. I'm in the middle of my first semester, and every class I attend just strengthens my knowledge that this is the right path for me.

I have serious ups and downs with my current job. There are days when I think that I can stick it out for the two years it will take for me to finish grad school, and then there are days when I don't think I can make it to the end of the week. It was on one of the latter days when I sent my resume to a headhunting firm that specializes in library staffing.

I got a call from them today. Now I'm excited, terrified, guiltstricken and indecisive. That's not how this was supposed to feel.

On the one hand, I see a world of possibility opening up for me. But this is way out of my comfort zone--it won't always be, but if I walked into a library right now my two classes worth of instruction wouldn't do me much good in the grand scheme of things. I don't know how to go about taking the time off to go to interviews. Only once in my life did I look for a job while I already had a job, and somehow that interview ended up being on a Saturday. (I do not count my restaurant jobs here. I did, on occasion, tell my restaurant bosses "This place sucks, and I'm going home and updating my resume so I can get the hell out of here." That is not recommended in corporate America.) And while I crave the career change, it scares the hell out of me.

Too, I feel guilty. I work for a very small business; we're at a point right now when anyone leaving would be potentially disasterous, but most of all me. There are three of us; the junior member of the team can't do my job, and my boss just doesn't have enough time. I feel like I owe them a warning, but I'm afraid to do that.

I have to call the headhunting firm back tomorrow and arrange an interview; I need to come up with an excuse for taking part of a day off; I need to get a handle on my guilt and decide how I'm going to deal with my current job. Right now, I'm going to bed. At least I can't be stressed when I'm asleep.