All Good

Today is a day in which I feel dumb.

You know my last post - that navel-gazing introspection of why I don't really want to go to grad school? It had an uncanny, unexpected, and all-consuming affect.

Paranoid email checking. Keeping my phone charged in case I get a call. Waiting for the mail to come, and then being disappointed with the flyers from Bed Bath and Beyond, HoCo community college, and my church. And worse - googling and twitter searching and Facebook stalking anything which might include, JHU, Writing Seminars, acceptance letter, admissions notice.

Ugh. Ugh!

I don't think I really cared - until I wrote that I didn't care. My brain, ladies and gentlemen, is a mess.

My life, though, is pretty great. How many young writers have the time, opportunity, and platform to practice their craft publicly? Though this blog doesn't have a wide readership, I still have my moments of coffee and creativity which make me feel that yes, I am a successful writer. I spend at least three hours a day on a daily practice, which I was never able to do in college. If that isn't some small piece of success, I don't know what is.

And I like it. I'm really happy. I see paths in my future as blissfully unexplored and full of possibility - with this blog, with a friend's new site in May, with maybe-babies, with house buying, with weddings and celebrations and feeling what it is like to be twenty-six and not really knowing what comes next.

It is a good time of life, and I am having a good time. I just hate, about this particular letter or email or phone call, the unexpected. The not knowing. The feeling of being cut off from my future, having one small detail be so important and game-changing. Does anyone really like what they don't know?

This post isn't my usual passionate stuff, and that's evidence of how distracted I am. Yesterday I took an afternoon nap, turned on the Deep Space Nine and cuddled my Tempur-Pedic pillow, just to stop worrying. I didn't care before! Really! But now, somehow, I do.

Putting this on my blog is hard for me, because, of course, I could get rejected, and public rejection is a lot less pleasant than the public meanderings that make up this drama of words and emotion. I've rehearsed how I will announce an acceptance - to my husband, to my parents, even to Facebook - but I haven't quite summoned up the guts to practice what I will say if I am refused admission. The latter is certainly more likely, but harder to swallow.

I've given myself today as the last day for worrying. If I get an email or letter or call, great - and I won't dwell on it anymore if I do not. Today will be the goodbye; I refuse, after the sun goes down and the post is in, to dream and anticipate and obsess over this one, relatively insignificant, bit of news. I've told G that once the day is done I will resolve myself, gird my loins, prepare for rejection.

One last twitter search - #jhu #rejected; one last email check - Groupon, Gilt, Rent the Runway; one last stalk of the Hopkins Facebook page; that's all I have left. And that's okay.

I've turned on Flogging Molly, the Chieftains, the Pogues, and sat myself down on the porch furniture with a glass of tea and my word processor open. I'm worrying, but that worry is coming to a close - I'm here, as I always was, writing and listening to music and ready for whatever comes.

There's a lot more of my life to live. And it's all good.