here goes nothin'

this post exists for no reason apart from it being a purely cathartic exercise. last night, lauren needed to stay at work late and finish a project, so i went up to his office to keep him company. we were there for approximately six hours. during that time, i completed and submitted a graduate school application. i never could have anticipated how nervous i would feel as i clicked the final submit button. for at least a month, my future is in the hands of people i have never met or even seen before. yikes. applying to school is a bit nerve-racking, when you haven't done it in a while. it reminds me of kayaking. each time i slide into a kayak, clamp my spray skirt around the lip of the boat, and push off the shore into the water, i wonder if i still know how to do an eskimo roll. i have done about two thousand eskimo rolls in my life. seriously. thousands. i used to be a kayak instructor, i have demonstrated the eskimo roll more than enough times to know that i can in fact successfully manuever my way back to safety in the event that my boat capsize.

i have been a student for the better portion of the last 20 years of my life. and yet, this limbo period between submitting an application and receiving a letter from an admissions office seems to keep me in a slight state of panic. what if i don't get in? what if UT-D doesn't think i am good enough to take three classes before continuing on to a masters' degree? these nervous thoughts should not dominate my every waking moment, and yet, there are butterflies in my stomach. i think i have just gotten to used to the idea of instant gratification. i have become impatient. i do not want to wait. i want to know right now, UT-D: are you going to let me into your school? or have i toiled for naught? i think if i was indifferent toward becoming a PA, i would not care at all what UT-D had to say about things. i would shrug off an acceptance letter, as though they were handed out like tracts at a screening of The DaVinci Code. just as likely, i would receive a rejection as a sign of what was simply not meant to be. but this is not the case. i want desperately, from the core of my being, to become a physician assistant. it is the perfect career for me. too bad the program is so damned competitive. everyone keeps telling me there is no way i won't be accepted to pa school. my response to such encouragement is merely more inner turmoil. what am i going to do if i don't even get accepted to UT-D? or if i go to UT-D (therefore forefeiting my very high-paying job, and health benefits) and don't get into pa school, what in the world do i do then?