Ruminations, continued

IX

The numbness I felt stayed with me to the end of that year.  My feelings of failure following my disaster in the Creative Writing program were so great that I failed to notice something important.  I was actually doing very well in my other subjects.  I had learned, despite myself, how to read, how to do research and, although I could not write fiction any longer, I had become a fair hand at writing an essay.  Without noticing it, I had become an A average student. 

I may not have noticed it, but others did.  Or perhaps I fell within the parameters of a computer algorithm.  That summer I received a letter from the university.  It informed me that I was qualified for post graduate work, and should give it a thought.   

So I began to think about it.  It wasn't something that I had thought of before, and it wasn't something I actually cared about, per se, but it was something I might be able to do.  I slowly began to warm to the idea.  Maybe this would be an acceptable destiny.  Maybe this was what my destiny had been all along.  If nothing else, it would give me an extra year to deal with the 'now what?'  of my life.   

I filled out the applications to three universities again.  Unlike when I first applied to go to university and was accepted everywhere I applied, this time I was turned down at the first two.  That left only the university I had attended for my undergraduate degree.  I began to think I was wrong again, and that academia would be closed to me, but then I received my final letter.  I was in, as long as I kept my grades up in my final year. 

That wasn't much of a problem.