March 6, 2009

• Lament

  I really wanted to go to Greece.

  I really really wanted to.

   

  I could imagine that amazing view from “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.” I could see all those textbook pages I’ve been studying coming to life. I could even imagine singing the Greek alphabet. Because I know it.

   

  Last Thursday there suddenly opened a ray of light in my life—two scholarships to Greece for three weeks in May. I wrote the essay—it was good. I got a letter from my teacher, and I filled in the application. And I didn’t get accepted. And all the “oh, it was really close…you were in the top ten…” kind of words don’t make a difference. You are either going, or you aren’t. and I aren’t.

   

  I wish I was better at keeping my mouth shut. I had the common sense NOT to write on xanga that I was going to Greece…but even just telling my family “I didn’t get the scholarship to Greece.” Is just depressing. Like stamping yourself over and over “I wasn’t chosen, I wasn’t chosen.”

   

  If I weren’t so deep gray at the moment I would tell you it was probably an equal trade off—the sharp intake of surprise at the opportunity, the anxious re-wording of my essay, and most all, the pulsing “Greece, Greece, Greece” in my brain as I worked at Carson’s and dreamed of Aristotle…and then the blank stare and nod of the man saying “I am sorry, you were not chosen.”

   

  Maybe I just wanted to be able to say I did it. I won a scholarship. I was one of the priviledged two. I went to the places most people only studied about. I did the college experience, but I did it with class. Or something like that. It would have been so bada-bing, bada-bang—May in Greece, June on a family vacation, and July head back to Brasil. There is no better time to squeeze in a little more culture.

   

  Which is probably why I wasn’t chosen. It was a theater trip and I’ve never taken a theater class in my life. I haven’t even taken the right public speaking class. Or I could give you other reasons…I’da missed a month of work, which is a substantial amount of money, while spending (I am sure) a bit on side expenses in Greece. But it never really was about the money, was it? I wanted to be validated. I wanted them to say “yes, you are special, you are recognized…and here is Greece to boot.”

   

  And then there is always the comforting (and true) thought that God must have May plans for me here. In Indy. But I still glare at that one and say it isn’t fair to remove that azure sea on the count of some plain, flat, naptown. With no ocean (probably the biggest thing I hold against Indianapolis).

   

  It drug up all the old dirt…the whispers of “you can do things well, just not the best. You may be close, but you can’t cut it. You just aren’t good ENOUGH.”

   

  And it struck another chord. One that started vibrating when Anna quoted “You can’t visit one place twice without visiting every other place once.” Horrible logic, I thought. What a depressing and tiring way to live, I surmised. And yet, with the words “you are not chosen” I felt locked into a closet. With no windows. Like I am stuck. Was that my one chance out? My one shot at going somewhere besides Brasil? What about the rest of the world? What about the rest of the good causes? Will they never be known? Never be tasted? Never be enjoyed? Will the unknown nag at me forever or will it be silent?

   

  I want to go to Greece one day. Europe. And I want to go for free. Because how could my conscience rest to spend the money needed to do that otherwise? It is hard to be normal when more than normal is set before you and then taken away.

  • 9:31 am
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