I sat at the dinner table, staring at my phone. It was exactly 8:00 p.m. Across the table, my mom was watching me, anxiously waiting for me to relay whatever was on the email to her. “I got in,” I said, with a hesitant smile beginning to form. I was happy, but only because I had been accepted; it was the happiness that came along with any form of validation. There was no relief, no weight lifted off my shoulders. I was just going to college.
“Oh my God!” she yelled, “That is so exciting! Congrats! It will be the perfect place for you! I knew you would get in! I didn’t sleep at all last night for no reason!” It felt good to know that she believed in me so much that she couldn’t sleep at all. That’s real confidence.
“Congrats,” my cousin said, as he adjusted his beanie and brushed his fingers through the little tuft of hair not covered by it. His monotone voice expressed no emotion, and I couldn’t tell if he was actually happy for me or just felt like that was the right thing to say. His voice matches his whole “intellectual” vibe that really just comes across as Eurotrash when you get to know him. “Congrats,” my sister followed, also with no emotion, but that was because we were mad at each other. That angsty mood is usual from her around dinner time, and will either feed on itself until she leaves the dinner table and runs to her room, or will fade away once she eats some food.
“What does the email say?” my mom asked as I turned my phone off and flipped it over on the table.
“I don’t know,” I responded. “I stopped reading after I read ‘You’re invited.’” I knew nothing that followed was important, and I was sick of college emails.
“Oh come on,” my mom urged, obviously annoyed. “Let me read it.” I handed her my phone and finished my dinner. Then I went to my room to do some of my homework, which I later realized I shouldn’t care about anymore. But after all this time of doing homework and studying, it’s hard to give up on it so fast. After finishing most of my work for the rest of the week, I called a friend. She didn’t pick up. Then I called another friend. He knew I was finding out about college that night and was scared to ask about it when he picked up the phone. I told him I got in, and he yelled so loudly I had to move my phone away from my ear. The acceptance just didn’t and still doesn’t seem that exciting to me. However, I did appreciate how happy he was for me. I told a couple other friends, but not many. Still, word gets around fast and people I rarely spoke to were congratulating me. It all sounded so fake. It seemed like they were happy because they knew where I was going and could compare me to themselves and their friends.
I can’t help but wonder if it was all worth it. I wasted most of my winter break writing college essays. I brought my computer into fancy restaurants so I could keep writing. I wrote in the car while we drove through the beautiful countryside of Switzerland and Germany. While everyone in my family was looking out the window at the magnificent landscape, I was asking for synonyms of words I had written so many times they lost their meaning. I showed my parents my essays on Christmas Eve, right before we left for one of the oldest churches in Germany. My dad took my computer, sat on his bed and began to read. He tore apart every sentence, saying words like “hopefully” and “will try” need to be cut for more assertive words to show I am exactly what they are looking for in their student body. Eventually the essays resembled nothing about who I am or what I believe in, but became as generic as the response they send when you get accepted or rejected. At least the essay is practically the same for every college. You can just switch out the name of the school, and the beautiful campus, award-winning professors, high-caliber resources, and amazing alumni all around the world will still ring true. To add some excitement, I resorted to writing ridiculous things like in my effort to save the planet from the years of poor treatment I shower once every other week and flush the toilet only when necessary. Of course, that gets edited out.
I have done most things for college since ninth grade. While I have pretended that most of it wasn’t and that I really, truly am interested in US history, what I was actually interested in was the AP that came in front it. I hate history, I always have. I spent summers thinking about how good whatever program I was at would look on my application. I begged friends to let me take over their clubs when they left and then ran those clubs into the ground. Even the small things I did, like the one time I volunteered at a dog shelter, were exploited for college.
I think I am the only person I know that isn’t excited for college. Most seniors are always sporting some form of college apparel, or exclaiming how “excited for the next four” they are. And if you didn’t post your decision on some form of social media, did you even really get in? I guess it’s good they are excited. It is their future. Maybe they are ready to grow up. My apathy is not because I don’t want to leave, I am most definitely ready to leave. And it’s not that I don’t like where I am going. But leaving high school means life is continuing, and I am getting older. Of course, I knew that was going to happen—it’s a fact of life—but I haven’t accomplished anything. I’m eighteen and there are fifteen-year-olds winning Olympic gold medals while I am finishing seven seasons of a Netflix show in two weeks. And after college, I have to get a job and be a part of the “real world.” The “real world” is hard, or so I’ve been told. I think I want to stay in school for a while. I might go to law school, or medical school, or business school, or somewhere that pushes getting a job back a little further. It’s not that I love school, or want to be a lawyer, doctor, or businessperson. I have no idea what I want to do, I just don’t want life to keep moving. And maybe while I am in one of those schools, I will find a husband and he will just happen to be very rich and then I will never need a job. That would be a dream come true. I’ll be sitting in a fancy restaurant in some affluent neighborhood in Malibu or Paris, gossiping with fake friends about moms that were late to pick their kids up from school, and how hard it is to manage seven houses around the world because I have nothing better to do. “Sorry Poppy, got to run. Bronwyn needs to be picked up from tennis, and then Arabella needs to be dropped at cotillion practice.” And then I go home and ask my chauffeur to take care of Bronwyn and Arabella.
I’m not excited because what I’m doing is nothing new or exciting. My parents never thought for a minute that I wouldn’t go to college. They just didn’t know where. I’m sure my dad wanted me to go to an Ivy League so he could tell his whole family in India that his daughter is going to an Ivy, but he is just going to have to get over it. My mom wanted me to go to her alma mater, Bryn Mawr. I don’t know how many times I told her I didn’t want to go there or how many times she told me I should consider it. My mom wanted me to apply so bad she even said I could use my sister’s supplemental essay. It took me telling her I’d rather go to any of the other seventeen schools I applied to than Bryn Mawr to finally get her to stop asking me to “just think about it.” And then I felt bad for saying that and started writing another college essay because at that point, what is one more? So, I considered it, like I considered every other school that was mentioned in my presence. Eventually, they all started to look the same. I can’t tell the difference between most of the schools I applied to. Their libraries are almost exactly the same, they all have a beautiful green quad that is filled with students when it is warm. At least half of them have a building that looks like it could be from Harry Potter, and the tour guide will be sure to mention that. I honestly can’t even picture the school I am going to. I’m sure it is beautiful, but all that comes to mind is the Pomona campus. Or was that Duke?