OYM: We Regret to Inform You, Congratulations

I haven’t felt this way since applying for colleges back in my high school days. And now, when I’m watching a movie or hearing about someone’s niece or nephew, my heart seizes in my chest for them, as I hear about finding that admissions letter in the mail or when I watch their mother’s clutch their shoulders as they open up that email. Congratulations, they’ll read. You’ve been accepted.

You don’t hear much about the “we regret to inform you”s, which is all that I experienced. I applied to a dozen different schools, none of them in my state and all of them touting a grandeur that was foreign to me yet seemed to be beckoning me all my life. I was rejected from all of them. My SAT scores were too low, they’d say. One woman in the admissions department even went as far to send me a link to where I could purchase a set of VHS tapes to help me study for the ACTs. She said they weren’t as hard as the SATs. It gave me hope. I spent the $22 and about a week later, the tapes showed up at my door. I inserted the first brick and pressed play. A middle aged white man, standing in front of a white board, in a white room, began to speak and scrawl. The dry erase marker squeeked and was barely legible. Within 7 minutes I had given up on my dream of attending college. This is why I failed math to begin with. I just couldn’t understand it and was shamed into thinking I was stupid by my then math teacher/football coach/swim instructor. He also did landscaping in the summer. I look back now and wonder why I gave that man the power to tell me I was incapable. I wasn’t incapable. He just wasn’t the right teacher for me. But unfortunately, I could only see that many years later.

I eventually got into a college I cared about. I tell myself that I got in based on my profound writing sample, but I’m fairly certain it was the 80% acceptance rate. But hey, maybe it wasn’t. I was able to have the college experience that I desperately wanted and I was able to do it in a space that allowed me to reach further than my roots would traditionally allow. It wasn’t a state school and it didn’t have a football team, but it’s what I needed. Chicago served as my formidable playground and it introduced me to people that were lifelong outsiders, like me. Painters, fashion models, photographers, singers, seekers, and the likes. But also idiots. Angry people, crazed people, ego-driven maniacs, and the underbelly of a big greasy machine. And as contrived as it sounds, I realized it was where I felt the most comfortable. The city kept me draped in a blanket of anonymity that suited me. I could observe and think and daydream without looking out of place. Every day handed me my own ass and I wasn’t embarassed to pick myself up in front of others and learn. For that, I’m forever grateful.

But here I am again, waiting to hear if I’ve been accepted. Not to a college necessarily, but something like that. I could be lying to myself, but I feel these types of situations have the power to change the trajectory of my life. The pessimist in me tells me that it’s all in my head and I’ll end up where I need to be, when I need to be. But what if I’m wrong? Just like my high school math teacher, I don’t want to give anyone the power to tell me my worth or what I’m capable of. But I know deep down that I only feel that way because it’s been so seldom in my life that someone has allowed me a space at the table. And I can’t be mad at that. My path hasn’t always been beautiful, but it’s been my own.

I hope I get in. It’s stupid and it doesn’t matter and I’ll live either way. But what if? What if someone sees something in me? What will that feel like? Until then, I’ll spend 5 mintues of every hour imagining, and then 5 more minutes convinving myself that it was their loss.