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[ltgmars]

Why am I not more upset? Why am I not on my knees, crying at all the dreams and wonderful possibilities that fell through my fingers when I logged into the decisions website and found out that my first choice school simply "didn't have room for me"? Really, I expected to be more upset or surprised or something... considering just how much I was looking forward to, say, joining the orchestra, or having a lunch date with YiDing somewhere in Cambridge, or visiting Sasuga Books on Saturdays, or getting a domain for being accepted, or possibly interning at Toudai, or all those other things I dreamed of that I was hoping, more than anything else, that MIT would be able to offer me.

But alas, I didn't get accepted. It wasn't much of a shock... it was more anticlimactic than anything else, you know. Like a scene in a movie where they build up the suspense, and the hero has worked this hard and gotten this far, and it's the final stretch, and he's neck-and-neck with his rival, but you know he's going to win just 'cause that's how these movies end -- happily. But once the music calms and you peek out from behind the fingers plastered over your eyes, you see -- feel -- the crushing disappointment in the hero's eyes, and you understand that he's lost.

But something incredible comes from the rubble of that loss -- somehow, he's wiser than he was, and he has the humility to accept the fact that, no matter how hard he's worked, no matter how much time and energy -- sweat, blood, and tears -- he's put into something, things won't always go his way. It's a fact of life he has to accept, a bitter pill he has to swallow if he wants to move forward.

There's no time to dwell on what you can't have. It's the road less traveled that you can't... quite... sift your way through. But what of it? One road's out of the picture, but there are others still there. Making a choice eliminates the possibilities that you could've had if you'd made a different choice, other roads with other ups and downs, other bumps and curves and flat stretches of endless asphalt that you can no longer experience simply because you made a decision; there's no straying from it.

So I'll absorb the loss, nod, and move on. Maybe I already have, considering my "Oh. Oh well." reaction after months of praying that somehow I get into this great school, and oh please, I need to get in because I've invested so much time thinking about a possible future there, and just thinking about going to school there makes me so giddy it hurts!

Or maybe I'm still numb to the harsh reality of the whole thing. Maybe I'll lock myself in my room tonight and cry my eyes out until I'm so sick I can't move tomorrow morning (God knows I've done it before). It may be unpleasant, but I'm sure it'll come eventually.

Maybe.

Pick yourself off the floor, dust yourself off, and move on. Other things are coming your way, and if you're still sitting on the ground with your head in your hands, how can you possibly be ready for what life throws at you? You've only begun to live... there's so much ahead of you, so many great triumphs and miserable defeats... However important this seems to you now, it's a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of your life. If you can't find the strength to keep going when all you want to do is stop, if you simply decide to live in the "could've"s and "should've"s swirling around in your head, then what are you doing with your life? How can you possibly be alive?

Stand up, look ahead, take a step forward. Don't let circumstances define who you are, and learn to keep going even if it feels as if there's no place left to go. Live.

As for me, I'll be waiting nervously for the rest of my college admissions decisions. (Damn the gods that made us all wait until the first week of April... what were they thinking?)

Until that time -- and far beyond that time -- I'll be living.

See you in a couple of weeks.

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