Please Mr. Postman

On Thursday, news of my future career as a student arrived in the telltale plain, white envelope.

I held its contents in my heart as I walked down the hallway toward our building's mail table. The rigid corner was sticking out from under a pile of coupon circulars and I could just make out "The New" in partial view on the return address label. Before I even pulled it out from under the stack of junk mail I felt the burn of tears in my throat. I brought it into the apartment and slid it gently onto the butcher block in my kitchen where it sat next to my vitamins and spatulas for close to an hour before I opened it. The ceremony felt so necessary. It was as though every word inside that mailer had the power to baptize me in a bottomless sea and thrust me forward, scrubbed clean.

I used a butter knife to slice through the fold in the envelope and, slowly, the stack of papers clipped tightly between my thumb and forefinger, I pulled them into the light. My eyes scanned for the one word I'd promised myself would be there if it were an answer in the affirmative: "pleased." They'd be pleased, I'd be pleased, we'd all be pleased. But it wasn't there. Black type on a white page, saying nothing. Then further in, deep into line five, simply, the word "pleasure." I'd so planned to see "pleased" that it almost didn't register at first. But of course! Of course it's their pleasure. Modern language, naturally. "It is our pleasure to welcome you." And there it was. A simple "yes" to so many feared "no"s.

I wanted to share this news with you first. Walking down the spiral staircase of uncertanties on this blog is how I have come to some very concrete truths about what it really means to change. So thank you for plumbing the depths with me. I promise plenty more risk and rationalization ahead.

We can start with financial aid.

SWAK,

OneKate