Bleeding Dreams

I have spent the past 4 years of my life teaching freshman composition, and doing almost entirely that and nothing else! It has been rewarding, interesting, frustrating, and exhausting, sometimes by turns and sometimes all at once. Now is a decision point for me. As I am making the final touches to the master's thesis I wrote with my own blood (that could easily be turned to a literal statement...often it feels that excruciating!) I am faced with the facts of where I am in life and where I want to be. Sure, I love teaching. Really, I do, even on those frustrating days when I feel like I am talking to a brick wall of emotionless faces. There is nothing like that breakthrough that occurs, usually few and far between, sure, but so awesome when it does come. However, I have to consider which dreams brought me to the place where I now stand. I started college at 18 saying that I knew I would always read and write, but I needed to do something to support myself. I changed my mind right away when I realized I needed to become a master of reading and writing in order to support myself as a writer, which was what I really wanted to do. Then at 21 I was recommended to supplemental instruction, and at 22 I got my own classroom. I am 26 now, almost done, sharing my love for reading and writing with tons of people every day. That's the dream, right? Well, almost. I read almost constantly. I teach how to write, what to write, how to read in order to write better, and I talk about reading and writing to 100 or more people every day. Also, I read their papers, read their lessons with them, and read a novel a week (except right now the novel I am reading is 2,000 pages long, so it's taking at least 2 weeks) but when do I follow my dreams? When do I write for me? And the thesis I wrote in blood isn't for me; it's writing, yes, it benefits me in the future, yes, yes and still yes. But dreams. They will probably nag at me forever, and if I don't complete them, the regret will take the place of the dreams themselves in torturing me in my sleep. I've been talking about this forever and doing nothing about it, but then what could I do while bleeding out over the pages of a giant document that could seal my fate for the future. I have to take the path slowly and wisely, but I wonder if now is the time to begin considering which fork in the road to take. I think I am certain of where my interest lies...where it has always lain...where it always will...okay, I am not trying to write "lie" in every tense possible...I get silly when I think too much.