Many, many years ago, when I was far more active on this blog than I am today, I used to write music reviews, book reviews, day-to-day updates, anything that I wanted to just get down and out there. A part of me misses the lack of self-consciousness with which I treated my own writing. The other part of me knows that at least the stuff I put out has a some sort of quality control restraining it, so it’s not worth belaboring the point.
That said, I find myself in a moment where I can’t help but think about a fairly common type of blog-post I used to put out: the college acceptance tracker. I applied to undergraduate programs twice. The first time, during Year 12, when I was only 16 and rearing to go out into the world. I was confident that I was ready, but even with the rejections I received, I was convinced against going to college on the grounds that I had a lot more to show for myself than my 16 years would allow me to. Begrudgingly, through tears, I agreed to see out the entirety of my A Levels. It was the best decision I had ever made up until that point in my life. It’s amazing what an extra year can do for you – and how much more fun college is when you’re actually 18 at the time of starting.
But I digress. Back then, while waiting to hear back from colleges, I would put out blog-posts reporting whether I had been accepted or rejected. I would describe how I felt about the application decision. I tend to be embarrassed about nigh-on everything I did when I was a teenager, but I look back at those memories with some fondness. I was so excited for the next big chapter of my life that I was desperate to share my journey with everyone, even if no-one read my updates.
This isn’t to say I’m going to start doing that with my grad school applications. I played out the cuteness of that experience back when I was a teenager. It isn’t quite as endearing when you’re a 24-year-old adult woman with a job and loans. But I can’t help but note some of the parallels. Whether consciously or not, I ended up applying to 9 programs. And whether I’d like to admit it aloud or not, there are certain schools I’m applying to out of a sense of obligation, not necessarily because I see a future there. Even though I submitted all my applications a few weeks ago, I can’t help but regret some of the choices I made. At the very least, this time I’m not investing my whole self in one school, but even having a “top choice” is terrifying to me. I’m ready to have my heart broken, if only to realize the best place for me is somewhere else – but I’m not ready to have my heart broken several different ways, only to realize that there is no best place for me right now.
I’m not the ideal candidate on paper. My GRE quantitative score leaves about 25 points to be desired. I don’t have a masters degree already. But there is so much I want to do, and only so many years to do those things in.
In 2005, the Kashmir Earthquake hit some parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir and India. I was in my home in Lahore, lounging on the couch and watching cartoons when the couch began to shuffle forwards. The french windows of our TV room rattled, and I immediately knew: zalzala. I rallied my mother (I feel like I’ve always played the role of the rallier in my family), who bade me go outside. I stood in our porch nervously, watching my grandfather’s jeep sway as the quake continued.
Reports of the destruction, lives lost, witness testimonials equating the earthquake to endtimes poured in. Lahore was spared the worst of it, but there was devastation in northern Pakistan. I was nervous all day. I once fled to the garden, wearing only a bath robe, because I felt an aftershock. I was only 10, and this was my first true brush with a natural disaster. My uncle and aunt, who were visiting when the earthquake happened, pulled me aside. They had understood the crux of my fear: I was confronting mortality. For better or for worse – and now that I’m 24, I have to say, maybe they were a bit premature on this – they explained to me that death comes to all of us. Some people sooner, some people later. The best thing to do is embrace mortality and hope we are ready for our death when it comes, however it comes.
As a good little Muslim girl, I tried to take that lesson to heart. I succeeded. Since then, I have been cavalier about death – at least, my own death. I harbored fantasies of being killed for my political stances. My lot in life was to live spectacularly and die spectacularly. In retrospect, I’m shocked at how well I took to that. It’s only now that I’m an adult that I realize the dangers of living that way, and the problem with learning that lesson so early in your life.
Here’s the biggest problem with that: I still feel the need to live faster, succeed harder, work longer, plan farther. Life isn’t long enough, so the sooner I live spectacularly, the better; that when death, comes I’m ready for it.
Didn’t expect this to be about dying, did you? Neither did I.
So now when I see the first two decisions regarding my PhD applications turn out to be rejections, I am confronted with the fleeting nature of my life. Even though I know that a year can be as long or short as you make it, even though there’s a chance my generation will be the longest-lived generation thus far. But there’s far too many people for whom that will not be the case, who will die young or unduly because of messes I’m still not ready to fix, or in a position to help avoid.
It’s never been about my dying – it’s been about others’ deaths or ill-living folk while I am still trying to get somewhere. I feel gripped by an urgency of purpose that I didn’t feel as intensely when I was 16 or 17. I’m trying to remember that the road to success is paved with rejection, and also that success is so entirely relative that I shouldn’t measure myself by constructed metrics. I’m also trying to remember that haste is a great way to corrupt oneself. And, sometimes, when I’m being thoughtful, I try to remember what my boss once told me: you can believe you were put on earth to serve, as long as you also remember that you were put on earth to eat pizza and hang out with your friends.
But every rejection makes me feel like I’m not actually ready. And that means I need more time to get ready. If climate change does come for my throat before I am ready, what will I have to show for it?
This is all a dramatic response to 2/9 rejections thus far, but I’ll let the quality control falter momentarily. If there is a lesson or moral here, and I always try to find one, I guess it’s this:
Maybe don’t turn a natural disaster into a moment to condition a 10-year old into accepting mortality?
Neiha Lasharie 