A dream died today. I don’t know how else to put it. A vision of a possible future I had cherished, had longed for, worked for, shared my hopes for with friends and family alike, died a sudden and most unexpected death. Today–this cruel day when that tease,  Spring, darted back into the frozen woods of my longing, mocking me for thinking that She had returned–on this blank and gray day, I am destroyed.

For those of you following my path with interest (all three or four of you), I received my Masters Program rejection letter today. Having been accepted into a previous program in another state, I guess I had built it up in my mind already that acceptance here must then be a surety. I was marking each day off my calendar in blue, that eternal shade of optimism, waiting for the Day I Would Find Out. And it is here, and I have found out, and I am lost.

The letter referenced intense competition, even kindly pointed out the vast number of applicants (350) competing for such an infinitesimally small number of spaces (12). But that means nothing to someone who is not one of the Twelve (ask Judas what it felt like to be applicant number 13.) 

This wasn’t like receiving a rejection letter from a publishing company; I can laugh those off with one arm tied behind my back. This was like having the next two years of my life carpet-bombed. I’d already made plans; I’d already been working out logistics, and finances, and now, there is nothing, just an endless crater of What-Do-I-Do-Now?

I know, I’m taking this hard, but I only opened the letter half an hour ago, and have yet to make it through all the official Stages of Grief that accompany a death in the family. Denial: They must have made a mistake and sent this letter to the wrong address. Pain: It hurts to be conscious. Anger: Those who can’t write teach writing courses! (apologies to those professors, and you know who you are, C.S., who are the exceptions to that angry statement. Remember that people often say things in anger that they do not necessarily mean.) Depression: I am a poor writer, I will always be a poor writer, and I had no possible reason to think that anyone would ever think otherwise. I am defeated.

Upward turn, reconstruction, and acceptance are the stages that are supposed to follow, but I think since I barreled through the first four stages simultaneously (Call me a prodigy) I sense that it might take a while yet for me to start looking on the sunny side of things.

What now? Do I chalk it up to intense competition this year, and apply again, perhaps somewhere else? Do I scoff at their rejection, and make myself a cheering list of all the fabulous writers who not only do not have M.F.A.s but who make fun of people who do? 

Or do I take this as a sign that I wasn’t good enough…do I turn in my keyboard and my thesaurus?

I am not sure at the moment. Perhaps tomorrow, when the snow has stopped falling and I’ve managed to work past these first gut-wrenching hours of disappointment, I will have an answer. After all, tomorrow is another day…

And today, oddly enough, was such a good day of work on my novel. Strange irony.  Perhaps it wasn’t as good as I thought.