Saturday, April 4, 2009

A Eulogy to the Past

O Prestigious University why didn't you accept me?
I wasted $75 dollars on your application fee

Can't you see your the one?

Why can't you let me in you sun of a gun?

Oh crap, I really need to get a life

To distract me from this everlasting strife

I created this elegiac masterpiece during AP French as my intestines were inundated with feelings of pity and self deprecation. Getting my rejection letter was painful, depressing and heinously pathetic. But as I flooded my ears with Conor Oberst and Neutral Milk Hotel (like I wasn't depressed enough) I realized something. No matter how strong, practical and rational we are we all become seduced by our dreams. We cheat on actuality to give in to our wants, our carnal cravings, our clandestine thirsts. We are no longer prisoners of reality but fugitives of reverie. And no matter how much you try to prepare yourself, no matter how many times you say to yourself that you have no chance, that getting rejected is expected, that it shouldn't come as any surprise it always does. Because you always believe that you're the exception to the rule or you wouldn't have even attempted to break it. And know matter how many times people fill you with the stories of qualified students getting rejected it doesn't soften the blow. Because you never want to be that kid. You want to be the one that succeeds, the person who everyone looks at and says "I always knew she would make it."

About two weeks before acceptance's were being mailed one of my cousin turned to me and said "I really hope you get rejected." I looked at her as if she were telling me that she wanted to become a Death Eater (Oh, come on we all know they're a historical parallel to the Nazis). After I gave her the look of death she preceded to tell me this: Rejection letters are a life experience. They make you see that life isn't easy. At the time I thought she was just waxing about some abstract moral lesson that would hopefully never apply to me. But it looks like it did apply to me, because I certainly learned that things in my life do not come easy. I guess getting the letter made me feel as if I wasn't enough, just mediocrity at its most finest and most delusional. Everyone from my mom to my best friends told me "Everything happens for a reason." My response? "That's the saying of failures trying to justify their lack of success." But as I let the reality of it marinate inside my head I had to acknowledge the fact that I wanted to get into Columbia more than anything I've ever wanted but I didn't get it. I have to realize that relating my self worth to a college acceptance is not only tenuous but foolish. I have to accept the fact that maybe everythign does happen for reason, that even though I really believe that I could have done great at Columbia that I can do great or maybe greater elsewhere. But mostly I have to accept the fact that if there is something special inside of me, even an ounce of potential, than I have to remove it from an abstract notion into something tangible. Hopefully I can still be that person who everyone always knew "would make it." My rejection taught me that my life isn't easy. But I guess I never wanted it to be a slut anyway.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

you go glen cocoa! i won't even list your spelling/grammatical errors because i'm so happy you realized that columbia is missing out, not you =)

Anonymous said...

Don't you worry . . it will always be slutty . . the poem was good, someone needed to call Columbia out on being "a sun of a gun" and Conor Oberst is really depressing.

The Aesthete said...

Then may I suggest not wasting yor time reading and commentating this "idiot" blog?