A Perfect Mistake
The summer that I turned 22, I became the hapless owner of a 100,000 debt.
Four years spent at Hofstra University had also netted me:
A BA in English Literature, with a minor in Fine Arts.
A Fiancé
A love/hate relationship with Long Island
50 porcelain bowls
You might have guessed that I'm one of many many many Millenials that feel pretty bitter about it. We were sold a story that we had to go to college at any cost (even $100,000+ in loans). And I went to a very privileged high school where a future of higher education was all but guaranteed and most certainly assumed. There was never any discussion of other options.
So I applied to only two schools - perhaps that particular misstep is on me. I was waitlisted for the more affordable state school, but accepted at the private school with a small scholarship. And thus began four of the best years of my life. Not because I made lots of friends - I didn't. Or because I did a lot of partying - I didn't, and can count the number of "parties" I went to on one hand.
But because I was responsible for only myself for the first time in my life. I'm not ready to write about what that meant to me just yet, but if you can relate at all, if you've tasted the freedom of bearing only your own burdens, then you and I may have had similar childhoods.
And now, more than 10 years later, through a mixture of good fortune (steady work and family assistance) and misfortune (deaths that have brought me an early inheritance), I am very close to finally being free of that debt.
On paper, college was a mistake. The short stint at grad school following that was an even bigger mistake.
But meeting my partner was not. Even setting out on a too-short trajectory to life as an English teacher was not. You know how it goes. One step leads to the next and there's no telling what you'd have missed on the path if you had changed course only slightly. Would I have ended up working for a telecom company? Volunteering to read tarot for their carnival-themed summer picnic? Delving deeply into the spiritual world of self-reflection and self-agency? Writing a book? Ultimately pursuing art?
I wouldn’t trade where I am, who I am, and who I’m with for anything.
Though I sometimes wonder about the alternate timelines, and if the me that didn't go to college thinks that was a mistake. And I'm comforted. Because if that particular move was a mistake for her, then I'm certain her life is as strangely synchronous and transformed as mine. Different, yes, but no less beautiful.
