So for those of you who don't know - these past few months have been filled to the brim with stress. My dream school is the #9 top liberal arts college in the nation. It has an acceptance rate of 25%. Nothing in the world meant more to me than getting into this college.
Meanwhile, I've been terrified. Some days, I would have emotional breakdowns because if I was accepted, I would be spending the next four years 1200 miles from home. Other days, I would have emotional breakdowns because if Haverford College didn't accept me, I had no safe back-up plans and I would probably be stuck attending some crappy college in Arkansas.
This prospect was scary and kept me in constant panic since I submitted my early decision application on November 15.
So you can imagine a pre-informed Erica around the day I was supposed to know - December 15. I did a lot of heavy breathing. A lot of scolding myself for tearing up and a LOT of panicking.
The closer it got to the day, the more split apart I felt; sometimes I didn't care a single bit, and other times I was in agony waiting for my dream school to tell me if I was good enough.
(Side Note: Whether or not I am "good enough" has been a constant struggle in my life and this particular situation was perfectly maddening for that reason alone.)
And then you can imagine me, walking around my kitchen table with headphones in, listening to a loud and chaotic dubstep song, and for a few moments in one of those "I could care less" moods.
For a while, I wondered what that particular mood meant. Was Haverford really my dream school if I could briefly, even for a mere fleeting moment, not care whether it was a yes or a no? This continued to add stress to my daily life.
But there I was, listening to dubstep and singing along. And then I saw I had an email. Now, usually my emails are college spam - colleges I have no care for reminding me of their upcoming deadlines or telling me that they are extending it FOR ME AND ME ONLY (okay yeah right).
Except this email was an email from Haverford College. And not just any email - the subject line read "Haverford College Admission Decision".
I read a science fact that stated that in a moment of sheer panic, the human brain will process more frames per second, which in turn causes a situation to feel like it is going in slow motion. I can attest to that.
In those few milliseconds, many different things crossed my mind. First, I considered deleting the email. I had a sinking suspicion that whatever was inside was the enemy. (Partly because I REALLY thought they would put "congratulations" in the subject line...)
Then, my finger inched closer to the screen.
I considered that it was not a decision at all, instead it would be a reminder that they were mailing the letters on the 15th. (It was the 12th.)
Closer still.
I considered my options. It would either say yes and I would find myself in Philadelphia next year, or it would say no and I would have some work to do.
Needless to say, I have never in my life felt so much pressure in so short a moment.
Never have I felt like my future was more unstable.
I felt like I was in a Schrodinger's Cat situation, and I felt like the answer in that email would be a direct result of my actions both good and bad. It was a crazy injection of Buddhism into my moral compass.
I opened the email.
"Dear Erica,
Congratulations!"
And then I stopped reading.
I dropped the phone, I leaned on the kitchen table for support, and I instantly burst into uncontrollable tears. All that panic, all that worry: it had led up to a "yes". And not just ANY "yes", but a "yes" from one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the nation.
The tears fell fast and my sobs were loud; a million thoughts raced through my head at once. I wondered briefly if my mom would rush into the room and ask what was wrong.
My mom. I wanted my mom.
I tried to walk but the edges of my vision were going black - I would faint if I didn't sit down and control myself. I fell onto the couch and I sat there, crying my eyes out for a good minute, before I finally got the strength to go find my mom.
I knocked on her door and she opened to see a teary-eyed teenage daughter. I'm sure she was taken aback, but I couldn't talk. I just handed her the phone.
After a second of reading, I watched her process that I had gotten in.
All she really had to say was that she knew it. She hugged me and cried with me.
I always thought it was strange; crying with your mom. The few times we cried together, it was so awkward for me. This time was much different. I needed someone else to cry with for the first time in my life - everything I had worked for had paid off.
So now I'm trying to process that I'm going to Philadelphia. Sometimes I still get a threat of tears. Fortunately, in that second, I realized that I was never in an "I don't care" state of mind. I just had to find a way to escape the stress of not knowing.
As soon as I opened that email, I knew that Haverford was my dream school and I knew that no other acceptance - even from Brown University - would change my mind about that.
Now to survive the rest of senior year.
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