What you do when life is not what you expected
Hello lovelies. Sorry for being a little MIA here. So much as been going on in my life lately, like the fact that I'm a college graduate now! Well, technically I was already a college graduate from Community College, but now I have Bachelors in Fine Arts in Creative Writing at SUNY Potsdam! *throws confetti* And that's all great and everything but now I'm thinking...what comes next? Which explains the title of this post.
Okay, I'll be honest, I'm in a tiny bit of a crisis mode. Let me backtrack here, I'm almost always in a tiny bit of a crisis mode, but this crisis mode is sponsored by: the upcoming, scary-as-hell future. So, as I mention before a couple times on the blog, I had been looking at graduate schools. Well, I got into three of them: Matthanville, Emerson, and The New School. For anyone who knows me in real life, knows how much I loved Emerson College. It's located in Boston and it's absolutely m dream school. I wanted to go there since high school. I actually got in for undergrad but the acceptance letter came too late. The down side was that I did not get a cent of funding. At Mattanville and The New School I got a small amount of funding but not a great deal to justify the cost. My parents even suggested to a take a year off and live with them (only child with older parents perk) But I really loved Emerson, and I wanted to go visit. So I did. In April me and my friend Dan, who also got in, drove down to Boston and...
I hated it, I absolutely hated it.
I loved Boston, completely and utterly fell in love with the city. But the campus, just felt wrong to me. I also hated the people in my MFA program, the factually seemed nice but the students were just the worst. They were the worst kind of writers: they didn't even know how pretentious they were. At the end of the day, for a Creative Writing major, your workshop is only as good as the people in it and these students in the creative non-fiction department were not people I wanted to spend time with. Even though Emerson swag-bag was great (for reals, they even had a selfie stick) and it's location was awesome; it wasn't for me.
So here I am, my dream school had been a complete and utter dud and I had reached the deadline for my other two options. I managed to get a reconsideration for The New School (a school that was infinitely nicer to me then Emerson, though I haven't taken a tour yet) and for the next year I'll be living at home, working as a tutor at my community college, finish my novel and trying to figure out my life.
It feels...off to me. This situation I found myself it. I feel like I'm in a standstill, like I'm stalled on the road and I have nothing else to do but sit there and wait. I know there are options for me: I can go to The New School, I could check out Vermont College of Fine Arts that looks more and more interesting to me. I can skip all that and try to find work in Public Relation and Marketing which I had been doing a little bit in my undergrad years. I could start my Literary Press with my friend. I can finish my novel. But, I feel like I can't reach them, like they're all out of my grasp. And even if I do pick one, all my other choices will disappear and I'll be left with another dream that didn't pan out.
I know I am doing things, but they never feel like enough.
So my horrible depression (and other horrible habits) came back into my life. Even with good things happened, like my Senior Reading, I still felt all this pressure that I was wasting my life. Like is this it?
(Me at my Senior reading where I'm reading a chapter of my novel. Photo Credit: To Katrina Rink on the left and Allycia Leach on the right)
But I am proud of my reading, so I guess that's something.
So, I'm a college graduate...what do I do next is the million dollar question. I spent most of my moments agonizing over this question it really doesn't need or deserve an answer. I never thought more then half the things in my life would happen to me, but they did. For better or for worst in a year or even three weeks time my life could be complete different. I'm hoping for the best, I am hopeful that I will find, whatever it is that I am searching for. I hope for success and security. Most of all, I hope to be happy. I have a lot of personal struggles in my life, but I will find strength in curiosity, living to see just what might happen next. I hope you do the same.
So what do you do when life is not what you expected? You keep going, you just let go of expect ion and keep going.
Stay Stylin'
Elle
P.S A photo of me and my wonderful friends who are beyond perfect. (I'll post graduation photos next week)
(Photo credit: Katrina Rink)
Okay, I'll be honest, I'm in a tiny bit of a crisis mode. Let me backtrack here, I'm almost always in a tiny bit of a crisis mode, but this crisis mode is sponsored by: the upcoming, scary-as-hell future. So, as I mention before a couple times on the blog, I had been looking at graduate schools. Well, I got into three of them: Matthanville, Emerson, and The New School. For anyone who knows me in real life, knows how much I loved Emerson College. It's located in Boston and it's absolutely m dream school. I wanted to go there since high school. I actually got in for undergrad but the acceptance letter came too late. The down side was that I did not get a cent of funding. At Mattanville and The New School I got a small amount of funding but not a great deal to justify the cost. My parents even suggested to a take a year off and live with them (only child with older parents perk) But I really loved Emerson, and I wanted to go visit. So I did. In April me and my friend Dan, who also got in, drove down to Boston and...
I hated it, I absolutely hated it.
I loved Boston, completely and utterly fell in love with the city. But the campus, just felt wrong to me. I also hated the people in my MFA program, the factually seemed nice but the students were just the worst. They were the worst kind of writers: they didn't even know how pretentious they were. At the end of the day, for a Creative Writing major, your workshop is only as good as the people in it and these students in the creative non-fiction department were not people I wanted to spend time with. Even though Emerson swag-bag was great (for reals, they even had a selfie stick) and it's location was awesome; it wasn't for me.
So here I am, my dream school had been a complete and utter dud and I had reached the deadline for my other two options. I managed to get a reconsideration for The New School (a school that was infinitely nicer to me then Emerson, though I haven't taken a tour yet) and for the next year I'll be living at home, working as a tutor at my community college, finish my novel and trying to figure out my life.
It feels...off to me. This situation I found myself it. I feel like I'm in a standstill, like I'm stalled on the road and I have nothing else to do but sit there and wait. I know there are options for me: I can go to The New School, I could check out Vermont College of Fine Arts that looks more and more interesting to me. I can skip all that and try to find work in Public Relation and Marketing which I had been doing a little bit in my undergrad years. I could start my Literary Press with my friend. I can finish my novel. But, I feel like I can't reach them, like they're all out of my grasp. And even if I do pick one, all my other choices will disappear and I'll be left with another dream that didn't pan out.
I know I am doing things, but they never feel like enough.
So my horrible depression (and other horrible habits) came back into my life. Even with good things happened, like my Senior Reading, I still felt all this pressure that I was wasting my life. Like is this it?
(Me at my Senior reading where I'm reading a chapter of my novel. Photo Credit: To Katrina Rink on the left and Allycia Leach on the right)
But I am proud of my reading, so I guess that's something.
So, I'm a college graduate...what do I do next is the million dollar question. I spent most of my moments agonizing over this question it really doesn't need or deserve an answer. I never thought more then half the things in my life would happen to me, but they did. For better or for worst in a year or even three weeks time my life could be complete different. I'm hoping for the best, I am hopeful that I will find, whatever it is that I am searching for. I hope for success and security. Most of all, I hope to be happy. I have a lot of personal struggles in my life, but I will find strength in curiosity, living to see just what might happen next. I hope you do the same.
So what do you do when life is not what you expected? You keep going, you just let go of expect ion and keep going.
Stay Stylin'
Elle
P.S A photo of me and my wonderful friends who are beyond perfect. (I'll post graduation photos next week)
(Photo credit: Katrina Rink)
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