My mother had a sort of quiet depression about her in April when the decision letters started coming. To this day I feel bad for her because she didn’t know what to expect, and i think she had been convinced that i stood a chance at all of these schools because my all important gpa/sat was above their tiny averages. Despite my possession of these all-important numbers, one by one those important four rejection letters trickled in, and every one was another blow struck against that pedestal she put me higher and higher on every time some trivial score came back to us in the mail and it was a whole shade higher than she had expected on the tiny blue ETS graph. She threw out a wait list letter from one of the schools without ever even telling me because she knew that i would find a way, and that it would just hurt my pride to be left hanging by a school i might not even make it into even if we could forget the expense for a moment.

Finally we came down to two serious offers from colleges we’d been neglecting all along, and somehow she fought as hard as i’ve ever seen her fight, and after the dust had cleared i at least wound up with some pride(money) and a seat. She knew by then that the whole process was some sort of hilarious joke aimed at me and at every teacher and family member that had ever projected glorious dreams of schools vying for me and scholarships raining down from the sky. She had put herself through school and kept me smart and safe and got me into the best public high school in the state and saw my plays and bought me a guitar and paid for my ap classes and drove me to PSATs. And, all for what, in the end?

All for Drexel, of course. But, we never really said that, and we never really do. Drexel is an amazing school that’s affording me the chance to mold my own future as i choose my co-op jobs and literally redraw the curriculum as i go. But, we never intended for me to go to Drexel. No one ever did. It’s all been blind faith and dumb luck all along.