I picked up my ID from NYU this afternoon, so I guess this makes my enrollment into graduate school official.

What that means exactly I’m not sure.

Right now I only see the debt I’m going to incur. $1,270 per credit, with no guarantee of any interest earned on my investment. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder whether this isn’t an investment at all, but rather a squabbling of funds I don’t have. Sort of like when I decide to spend my entire paycheck on couture instead of necessities, like food.

Something about the clothes just feels more filling–like a high fiber cereal for breakfast vs. a cinnabon.  But it’s probably not the smartest way to spend my hard earned cash, nor is truly whetting my appetite.

I could be fooling myself, or maybe I’m just scared of all this change at once. The truth is, no matter what my pedigree of degree is, if I want to work in the arts I’ll have to eek out a career among the thousands of non-profit professionals migrating to NYC in hopes to be the next Glenn Lowry. It’s so hard to do this on your own.

My whole life I’ve just forged ahead with some abstract idea of what my life should be and how to get there. I began my life’s journey a a firm believer that superior ability leads to success, but even if I did pull myself out of the muck and mire of my life by earning scholarships and accolades to prestigious programs and institutions, it’s not enough. Even if I parlay my NYU MA into a PhD from Harvard, what does that get me in the end? I have nothing desirable to offer the world except experience and intelligence because we are so buried by the lust for the rich, blank, and beautiful that substance has no value. The poor, chubby, smart girl doesn’t achieve swan-hood via further education. She gets it by being dull and keeping her eye on the real prize, a wealthy husband. I and just can’t keep my mouth shut long enough to let anyone love me in the right way.

I’m always inventing and imagining my life to be something spectacular to the point where the fantasy is so much better than the reality that I just have no use for truth anymore.  I’m a writer and a dreamer. The characters in my head, the characters in the books I read are always far more interesting than the people I know in the real life.  Which is why I need to be in a creative and passionate environment–which is why perhaps graduate school is the right choice. Perhaps it will turn out that it will be a bubble for forward thought and motion. A safe haven for me to think independently and freely, without the constraint of convention.

So even if I don’t know what the things in my life add up to, I know that as I get older, my idea of Self becomes more defined. I may not know what graduate school means to me in the end, but I know that I’m finally a little more comfortable with the fact that I’m not like everyone else. I’m different and bored by the status quo. I spent too much time trying to map out a normal life, instead of following my heart towards something extraordinary.