Mixed Feelings News

I get home and my roommates asks me if I received his text. I say no. He says, 'you got a letter', I look over to my bed, and there it is, a white 8.5 by 11 envelope sitting on my bed. I walk over to it. It's from the University of Toronto. Something in me says, 'I can't open it'. I wait a few minutes then I do. I got accepted to the program. It doesn't really feel like anything, though I know it should be an exhilarating moment. All I can think in my head is 'it doesn't matter if I get accepted or not, I need that scholarship to be able to go'. That thought takes the wind out of the moment. I call P, he's excited, he congratulates me, I call my mom, she does the same, and reassures me that everything financial will fall into place.

I hope she's right. I know around this time the Ontario Graduate Scholarship awards are supposed to be announced. I figure it's not a bad idea to go on their website to check the status of my application. Something I forbade myself to do before because I knew it would just turn into an obsession. I get on the website, go through the random usernames and passwords I never remember and get to a page where i'm asked to select an option. My eyes look around the page lightning fast and I select the first option I see starting with an 'O', because my application is the OGS. It informs me that 'You currently have no 2009-2010 files online'. My mind is sent into the most intense tailspin i've felt in a long time. Suddenly, the acceptance I got from Toronto was no longer an option, it was forbidden to think about, my whole future was ripped apart in two seconds.

I decide to write a post about the absurdity of life, and it's unfairness, and my disappointment. I want to quote the line that sent me into shock correctly, so I go back to the site (after having done so several times before, as if in disbelief) and for some reason, my eyes aren't so quick to scan the page. I see 4 options, one of which is the OGS option, my option. I click on it and it brings me to a page informing me that my application has been received and is complete. I will find out the results after april 14th.

I cry from the shock of the whole situation. I had no idea I had so much pent-up anxiety about this. I thought my anxiety was all out in the open. Turns out, when everything collapses in one instant, my anxiety is infinitely more acute. Now my eyes are burning, my nose is stuffed and my heart is finally slowing down from the whole thing.

I can't believe this world, in all it's greatness and disastrousness.