The spreadsheet again

It's a Sunday evening in late February, a year on. The laptop is open on the kitchen table, and on it is a planting plan for a north-facing border. It's due on Tuesday. You're not happy with the back row.

Last February, the evening after you read about musts, you wrote four on the back of an envelope. Stay failed the first one, which you'd known for some time. Course and Move both passed. You tossed a coin, and it said Move. You felt your heart sink, and that settled it. You slept on it, and it still stood at breakfast. You sent the college's form before work and told your sister at lunchtime.

The wobble came on the Wednesday, at about three, and it was a strong one. You checked it against what you'd written. Nothing had changed, so you went back to sleep, eventually.

The sofa took twenty minutes, the following weekend. It's the grey one. The arms are a bit lower than you'd like, and you stopped noticing that in about a fortnight. Everyone sits wherever they want.

The course isn't what you pictured. The Tuesday class is good and the Thursday one drags. Two people have dropped out. The technical drawing came harder than you expected, and the plant knowledge easier. You don't know yet whether there'll be work at the end of it, or whether you'd want to do it full time.

At the end of the first term you had your review. You looked at the four musts, and three were plainly met. The fourth, the evenings, was tight but holding. You decided to carry on.

The thing you notice most is that the question has gone. You don't think about it on the drive to work, and the man at the wedding wouldn't have to hear about it now. The file called Options is in a folder somewhere. You haven't opened it since March, and you're a little embarrassed by how many rows it had.

There are other decisions, as there always are. The car will need replacing this year. On Friday you wrote down three musts for it and a date in April.

You still work at the builders' merchant, four days a week now. It's still fine. When people ask about the course, you tell them you're halfway through the first year.

If you've read this far without doing anything, take the list from chapter 1 and find the smallest item on it. Write down what that choice has to do for you, in four lines or fewer. Then pick the first option that does it, tonight, and close the tabs.