Holy Crap!

I returned home from my fun (if chilly) Easter vacation to find a very large white envelope—not a small, skinny envelope—with Emerson College’s logo waiting for me. Even before I opened it, I knew what it was: an acceptance letter.

Holy Crap! An acceptance letter!

It’s a crazy thing. 6 months ago, I was getting ready to leave EBASE and searching for the next job in what I presumed would be my ongoing career in the progressive non-profit world. Thank God for the woman who—in the middle of an interview—challenged me on whether that line of work was really making me happy.
Upon reflection, I had to admit that it wasn’t, that it never had, and that I’d better figure out what would.

I’m generally not much for making spur-of-the-moment decisions and acting on them. I’m more of a deliberator, and I can ponder a course of action for weeks, months (hell, even years) before I’ll feel ready to act on it.

So it was somewhat out of character that less than a week after that interview, I had decided to ignore 5 years of non-profit work experience, a year of career counseling, and possibly even my basic common sense to pursue something I’d always loved: movies. And I decided that if I was going to pursue something I loved, I wasn’t just going to be a “professional appreciator” of movies; I was going to try making them. Because I firmly believe if you’re going to take leave of common sense and un-do 5 years of work experience, you should go for the big dream, and not half-ass it.

So in a matter of weeks, I memorized 4000 vocab words, re-learned 9 years of math, took the GREs, cranked out grad school applications and harassed my former co-workers and professors to speed-write letters of recommendation. And then I waited. I talked about “if” I got into grad school, what I would do.

And now suddenly, the “if” is a “when.” Something that was only a crazy pipedream two months ago is now much more real. And now I have to face the scary tough questions: will I be good at it? Will I succeed at it? Is this the right route—the best route—to get where I want to go?

But as scary as all of those questions seem, I’m excited to get to answer them. Scary is definitely better than safe, if safe means not ever being happy in what I’m doing.