What dreams may come?

The challenge:

Apply to 12 law schools.

The reward:

I haven’t decided yet.

Okay. I can be a bit of a strange mix of things. On the outside, it may seem that I’m some version of Together Girl; I dress well, tool around Cambridge in my cutie Dutch bike, I’ve just applied to law school, I run a successful outreach program at New England’s largest mosque, and I have a few small community-building projects that appear to be working in the way I had hoped.

This is what Together Girl looks like. Boots included.

Now, inside, it is a different matter. Inside, I am a half-fried mad-hatted writer with a thousand ideas, a hundred ambitions, and not enough time to wash yesterday’s coffee pot. Thankfully, I am able to disguise this well, but that doesn’t mean that my befrizzled inner self doesn’t weasel herself out of her cage now and again. And on those days, she renders me incapable of being either responsible or productive.

Five minutes. It's all I need, I swear.

This happens every time I have to do…anything large. Queen Procrastination reigns with horrifying tyranny, her adviser Sir  Stress faithfully by her side. The torture they inflict is excruciating. I hope you never, ever experience such pain.

Here’s where the odd mix comes in. I don’t not do things because I don’t care about them. Take these pesky little applications. I didn’t not complete them…um…more than a day before the deadline because I didn’t care. I do care. I care so much that I am paralyzed with fear. What if no one lets me in? What if I get one digit of my social security number wrong, and no one knows who I am? What if I mistakenly mark that I am from Bangledesh and they think I’m a lying fraud? What if I send the Penn essay to Northwestern, and the Northwestern essay to Columbia? What if I’m too late already, with a December LSAT? What if they don’t let Muslim girls into law school? What if I’m not smart?

Maybe if I curl up in this ball, the applications will do themselves?

I know. I know I know I know. Muppie, CHILLAX, it’s not that deep. It’s just an electronic application. Fill out phone number and permanent address, attach personal statement, press send. It is soooooooooooo very simple. Really. Seriously.

(In my defense, hindsight, wisdom, and friends all have 20/20 vision. Insecure girls masquerading as more together versions of themselves do not.)

So, you’re right. It’s not that deep. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Worst possible scenario: I get in nowhere. I reapply next year. In, like, September. Get the rolling  admissions process on my side. And I get in places. And I go to law school a mere 12 months after I had originally intended. Big freaking deal.

Thing is, to me it would be. I have never ceased to be terrified of suddenly finding myself incapable or inadequate. This has resulted in a lot – a lot – of playing it safe. Of putting things off. Of dreaming crazy dreams that involve Yale, a lot of ivy, a lot of coffee, a lot of all-nighters, and a Juris Doctor, and then placing them on that tidy shelf in my psyche labeled Pie in the Sky. Also known as the Maybe Later? shelf. As long as they are dreams, I cannot fail. As long as they are dreams, I do not have to hold myself up next to my high school classmates who are (gulp) already practicing lawyers. Because I’m finding myself. Very consuming work. Far too busy to take entrance exams and fill out applications now. Next year. Maybe next year.

BUT. But, dear readers, my lovely blog-visitors, I have TRIUMPHED! I have barely triumphed, yes. But I. Have triumphed. Over Procrastination Queen and her Minions of Misery. I. Have applied. To graduate school.

I flabbergast myself!

Do you realize what this means? Maybe. Probably not. I am on Cloud Nine right now. I can do things! I can apply to grad school, if I feel like it! I MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE A FUTURE! Can you believe it?

Anything can happen now. I will believe anything. I will believe it if my favorite juvenile cartoon prince shows up with roses.

I just can't get enough of this guy.

I will believe it if the sky is purple tomorrow, or I wake up and don’t have Tragic Morning Hair. I will believe it if I get into law school. Anything can happen to me now. Anything!

I want to give myself a prize, but what? I’ve contemplated a cheesy romance novel instead of some more serious literature for my next book; throwing myself a party; allowing myself to watch as much Buffy the Vampire Slayer as I want for an entire week (I know, I’m like, crazy). I haven’t decided. So I’m blogging. Because clearly, this is what you do when something momentous happens. A girl needs witnesses.

What dreams may come, you ask? Any. Any dreams may crawl off your Pie in the Sky shelf and sneak over to Real Life. Isn’t existence delicious?

Dear Yale

Yale has asked for two hundred and fifty words, and this is keeping me up at night.

A 250-word love letter to Yale that I will never send:

Yale,

Everything I think to write to you sounds absurd in my head. The notion of admission at this point is ludicrous. What, me? Since when did I have the audacity to think myself special? Doesn’t the world know yet that I have not grown up? I keep thinking that one morning I will wake up and suddenly things will click; that I will prefer soup to nachos, that I will stop ingesting coffee at such an alarming rate, that I will rise at five o’clock every morning for a five-mile run, that I will start making grocery lists and going to the dry cleaner’s. I’m waiting for my future to become the technicolor present. I am in a fabulous law school, and lo! I study like a maniac, because this time around I actually know what I want. Come the end of first semester I surprise myself, but not my parents or professors, by acing all of my exams. My family declares that they are proud of me, my mentors prophesy that I will make a smashing scholar of the law, and I manage to dress fashionably the entire time. Nutmeg has a favorite perch (on the windowsill, overlooking the street) in my charmingly adorned, yet small, apartment near campus. I drink tea and read the paper every morning, and have not given up novels despite the raging pace of studies. My yoga practice is flourishing, and I’ve finished the manuscript of my first novel.

I promise this is all possible, Yale. For you, I would become the girl I could be. If you asked.

Love,

Muppie

This is a blip.

This is what I tell myself: this is a blip. This can’t possibly be permanent.

There is no way that my professional career is over, kaput, at the age of twenty-five. Being out of work is temporary; it must be. I’m too well-educated, too smart, too young for it to be otherwise. It can’t possibly be that studying abroad in a non-degree program, followed by six months of unemployment, will be prohibitive to my gainful employment forever. There simply is no way. This doesn’t happen now. I can’t be pigeon-holed into obscurity and idleness yet. Right?

Loneliness. This too is something I will laugh at later. The convert, especially the late one, has the special privilege of feeling out-of-place and different in every situation. I am an outsider, an unknown, a minority, a mystery, to the people I grew up with, the people with whom I have all but one thing in common. And among born Muslims, there is so much running just under the bridge of my spoken words, a whole world of experience that is unknown, a whole landscape full of my regrets, my hopes, that is simply untouchable. They talk about things they dream of, new things, pure, untouched, unknown, and I’m thinking: I miss that. Or: It’s not worth it. You think you want that, but you don’t. More trouble than it’s worth. The recollection, the extra conversation I have with myself, is sweet, it is bitter, and I’m looking around for someone who knows, and there are no knowing eyes to meet mine. Alone in a crowded room.

It takes time to enter fully into a new community, and really there is no complete knowing another person. Does my mother wish that she could introduce me to her own twenty-five-year old self? Does it fill her with melancholy that at twenty-five, she still hadn’t met my father? Is it strange that most of the people in her life then are gone from it now? I doubt these are things that plague her – and yet, I don’t really know. Perhaps this happens to everyone, and the extremities of my own experience only give me the illusion that I’m the only one. I’m not the only one with a past. I’m not the only one whose social circle has shifted completely in her twenties. So what makes me think I’m so different? That I have more extravagant stories? That makes me feel older than I actually am – like there are two generations encompassed in my life. Two lives lived. I can say things like: In my wilder days…and I don’t say it often, but the fact that I can, and it would make sense for me to, sometimes makes me feel like a bit of a grandmother. You wouldn’t believe it of me, kids, but when I was your age I used to…

And then there is my constant affliction of underachievement. My brother, who is nearly two years my junior, is fluent in a foreign tongue, is on a Fulbright scholarship, and is nearly halfway through a Master’s degree. And is happily married (may God increase their happiness!). And there is me…the family diletante and court jester, theater-dance-biology-literature-politics-Islam-journalism enthusiast [note: scholar of none of the aforementioned fields]. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll do something. I’ll accomplish something. I’ll do my father proud. These are the things I tell myself in my day-to-day incompetence. Someday. Someday soon, too. I sit and watch people, people with fields of study and cultivated interests, people who have not only chosen but taken a path, and my skin prickles a little with jealousy. Just a little. I tell myself my ship has yet to sail. It’s not that there isn’t a ship. I’m just doing extra polishing. I’m thorough. I’m preparing. I’m cocooned. In just a moment I’ll emerge as a gorgeous butterfly, and then I won’t care that anyone else did it before me…

And I am hopelessly underfaithful. This is my biggest and most pressing problem. No one is promised tomorrow. I live and pray in fear of never achieving life’s only worthwhile accomplishment: closeness to my Creator. Thankfulness for my blessings. Sincere worship. I know – in my head, I know that nothing else will matter to me in my grave. I know it, but my heart has yet to ingest and implement this knowledge. Bowing in prayer, I attempt to be aware of the fact that, God willing, come the Day of Rising, I’ll be bowing before the Magnificent, the One I have worshiped lovingly all my life. I try to imagine how real that bow will be, how deep and meaningful – how fulfilling…and the same feeling I’m imagining – of urgency, of I spent my life preparing for this, I am afraid to say, does not permeate my prayer. I hope and pray that these things will get better…I imagine myself a better person, a better daughter and friend, a better sister and aunt, a better Muslim. There’s hope for me. I’ll get there. I go about doing dishes, feeding my cat, ironing and pinning my scarves, dimly aware of the fact that saints have tread this earth, and every moment was thankfulness, nothing was petulant, that in reality, they were in love – with God. They looked at their families and the people they loved, at their homes and jobs and property, at themselves, and instead of wanting more and more, instead of being laterally in the space of love, they took it up. They upped the ante. They were aware of the blessing and its Bestower all at once. And that was enough – it was more than enough – their lives inspired real devotion. I am only scraping the surface. I am thankful, but it is far too easy for me to forget that my life was given to me. I forget that I, too, am a creation, and have no claim on my Creator. It’s as though someone has handed me the keys to a shiny new Prius for no reason at all, just because, just out of love, and I’m upset because it’s not a Jaguar. I mean, who cares? Who do I think I am? Was there ever a perfect life?

Today’s lesson (and thank God for it, too): I went out to dinner with a couple of good friends, and the hostess at the restaurant was lovely, warm and nice. But her face, which was not unattractive, was completely lopsided. One side was scarred with obvious surgery, and it looked slightly pinched – as though her features had emanated from a point by her right ear. But she was friendly and completely unafraid, and quite beautiful because of it. I marveled at her. Here I sit – how many moments have I wasted fussing over every pimple, every slight imperfection – how much time have I spent searching for things on myself that didn’t meet my approval? How much time? God forgive me for every second I didn’t praise Him for every touch of beauty He gave me. What was I thinking? What did I want? What more could I have asked for? What would have been enough? Really. Insecurity is a bottomless pit. Nothing would have satisfied me. What foolishness.

The truth is, I don’t need for anything. I’m independent and mobile and self-determining. I’m free to pursue my interests as I wish. I have youth, and health, and faith, and a working mind, literacy and bookshelves of books, and more love and admiration for my friends than I could hope for. My parents love me and are in good health. I have three lovely siblings, the best sister-in-law in the world, and a cat that chirps like a velociraptor.

Meow.

I want things from life. Sure. That’s human. There is a beauty to wanting, to hope. But my fault is in allowing that to distract me from what’s there. How stupid I would feel if tomorrow I were paralyzed, or diagnosed with a serious illness. I would have missed the opportunity to recognize my blessings while I could still enjoy them. Would I feel cheated? I hope not. I hope that I can want things – a proper job, to be known, to become accomplished in some field, to feel close to God and thankful for my blessings – without feeling entitled to them. I feel that is missing the point. I don’t deserve any more than the next person. Who am I to claim a larger share of employment, of wealth, of health, of beauty, or faith, knowing that we are both creations, and that our bodies, personalities, abilities and hearts have been bestowed upon us just as our external circumstances and material possessions have? Have I a greater claim to anything? Surely not. But I forget. Again and again, I forget.

Remind me, forgive me. Mostly forgive me.

(for Nuha.)