Come September

Do you ever want something so badly that you're sure the world is going to try to take it away from you?

I am not a "lucky" person. This is not to say that I'm not incredibly fortunate to have a wonderful family, great friends and all of the opportunities that go along with a middle class upbringing and my health.

But if we're talking a roll of the dice, win the lottery, pull your name out of a hat kind of lucky - I'm not it. I envy people who have those charmed lives. We all know them, just when everything seems to be taking a turn for the worse, something comes along and saves them. They seem to somehow be given chances the rest of us don't have.

I learned a long time ago that I have to fight for everything I want in life. I learned a long time ago not to place my happiness in other people hands.

Which is why, last month, when I was making a pro/con list for grad schools and looking up cars to buy for another summer working at Pinhey's, I couldn't imagine a time where things fit together so perfectly before. I couldn't remember being that thrilled about my future.

And this is where the post gets depressing...

I try to be an optimistic person. After years of emotional pessimism in high school, I surrendered to the fact that at heart I'm a daydream believer. So over the last four years I've embraced that side of myself as much as possible.

But I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that something was going to go wrong.

First, I had a meeting with my boss and found out that I wasn't going to be able to go back to Pinhey's this summer. I'm conflicted about this, because the job I did get is still with the museums, but it's the Tea Coordinator job at Billings. And to truly understand why it upsets me, you have to understand how much I love Pinhey's. From the first day of my job last summer, I felt like a part of me belonged there. I loved every second of my job last summer. I couldn't imagine a better way to spend a summer, on the water in a house that was built in the early 19th century. In costume. So it's not that I'm unhappy with the job at Billings, so much as I know I'm really going to miss Pinhey's.

Secondly, I failed. Which I've written about already.

And now, the financial implications of moving to England and paying overseas tuition are catching up to me. I think I live in a little bit of a bubble, and don't fully understand what money means sometimes. I do now. The bank rejected my first application for a student line of credit this week, and now I have to look into other options.

I am a strong person. I have all the ability in the world to do things for myself. But this... I can't deal with. It's just too big. When I think about it my heart hurts and it's hard to breath.

I have gone through four years of arguably the most demanding journalism program in the country. I have hated nearly every minute of it. I have worked myself raw to get where I am and it was all leading up to this. To grad school. I may not have known it all along, but as soon as I made the decision I had that awed feeling of the pieces fitting together. This is what I wanted to do. More than anything. It was my future. I didn't need to know what came after, I just needed to know that that's where I was going to be in September.

But now, with all of these obstacles in my way, is it? Am I going to lose this?