Yesterday the last of my college responses came. For the last four years I’ve been in and out of junior college, dealing with a bipolar disorder that was resisting treatment. Besides that, I realized in the fall of 2009 that the prep school utopia was not for me- I couldn’t switch from pressure cooker high school to a pressure cooker college, on to a pressure cooker career. That was a road with an unhappy conclusion. But I felt ready to try to transfer.
I got into all the places I had applied. When I first applied to colleges out of high school, I visited one and bought a lovely heavy long-sleeved shirt with the name on the front. When I did not get into that particular school, it always felt a bit strange (though the shirt was lovely and I couldn’t throw it away). This year when I visited my favored place I got a hoodie and played the same game of chicken. I’m glad it’s a reminder of what could be in the future, rather than a past hope.
There’s a comforting haze when the schools have yet to respond. The paperwork for the next step of my life was filed, but the mystery keeps it all from sinking in. I’m going somewhere in September to try for a degree. The junior college limbo period has ended; I’ve picked up enough pieces now, and in the process figured out what I need and what I can live without.
The commencement speech cliche that ‘today is the first day of the rest of your life’ hits home. Of course, that’s true for every day, but only at certain points does the perspective of that quote resonate.
Unspoken Politics 
Reblogged this on TGM Millennials.
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