OUTATIME

MFA applications. I wouldn’t wish this shit on my worst enemy.

“If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” — Marty McFly

Having first-world anxiety over here in ways it feels indulgent to complain about. With barely three months left until I graduate and the future still so unknown, an ill feeling has curdled in my guts, making me miserable for the immediate future. Rejection is an evil bedfellow, reminding me why I never made it as an actor. Plan A is the ideal, but as we inch closer and closer to the April 15 deadline for graduate schools and rejections drop in my inbox like the pox, plans B and C are getting thrown around like a hot potato dead set on spewing its scalding hot innards into my lap at every turn.

I feel sorry for my husband as his planning-prone soul is deadlocked in a purgatory of what is happening next. At the same time, he is the primary recipient of my I’m-less-than ramblings and insecurity sessions of hours on the couch doing needlepoint and watching The Great Pottery Throwdown while refreshing my inbox a thousand times a minute. I spend afternoons saving myself from the suction of circling the drain, only to have some renewed regret bubble up and compete with the never-ending ringing in my tinnitus ears for who can break Burgin’s spirit the fastest. Real problems circle my life in the form of family and the breakdown of democracy. Still, somehow, I can’t see further than this godawful spreadsheet I signed up for, where everyone reports their MFA acceptances and rejections in real-time, leaving you in a constant state of soft rejection long before the official word comes down.

I wouldn’t wish this shit on my worst enemy.

Forget the Dean’s list. Forget the fact that I got invited into Phi Beta Kappa. Forget the uplift that everybody and their grandmother has always cheered me on and told me I’m talented and worthy and capable of great things. The minute one of those thank you for applying to blah blah MFA program… after careful consideration, we regret to inform you that your application was not selected, and you suck worst than any writer we’ve ever gotten an application from in the history of higher education emails, you basically feel like a dirty penny about to be bounced out of circulation.

I know, I know. These fully-funded programs take 3 or 4 students out of 1000. I get it. The chances are slim, and the people getting these spots have worked as hard as I have (maybe harder) and probably have a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in their pocket as we speak. But a girl can dream, can’t she?

I am lucky. I have one and a half offers (that are amazing if I am willing to spend the dough), and I have an unrelated to graduate school but equally intriguing plan B and C. Lots of these kids vying for these spots don’t have that sort of safety net.

I might be burdened with a reoccurring sense of low self-esteem, but I also have an enormous capacity to rally and look on the bright side. And believe in myself. My sisters call it the “Midas touch”, but I am sure it is more dumb luck laced with optimism. I will prevail. Life will go on. I am going to graduate. I am going to keep writing. I also have a bunch more schools to hear from, so maybe this panic is premature. No matter what happens, I will do something with my life that was probably what I was meant to do in the first place. There is no turning back the clock. If I don’t get in someplace affordable, I will lick my wounds and try again next year, probably in nonfiction, which is slightly less competitive and was always my first love anyways. Does that sound like sour grapes? Maybe, but who cares?

Whatever saves me from myself is A-OK.

Apologies for indulging in this frivolous rant. Just thank your lucky stars you aren’t a close friend or relative who has to listen to this justification 24/7. And apologies if you live in my neighborhood and this is your car. I couldn’t help myself.