Thursday, October 22, 2015

Getting In, Part Three: A Light, Flat Envelope

It is a light, flat envelope, too light and flat for all the sweat, creative juices, hard work, and just plain life that went into it. Perhaps the high cost (when did the U.S. Mail become so expensive?) of mailing it acknowledges its importance, because except for the giveaway address on its front, it could be any unimportant envelope mailed to any not so important place.
 

This light, flat envelope, full of work and creativity and sweat and life, is my daughter's first college application. In a world that runs mostly on the Internet, this is still snail-mailed. Despite our desire for immediate delivery, we will wait two days to know whether the Postal Service did its part as well as we did ours. And then we will wait, months, before we know what this light, flat envelope, and the assorted supplementing application pieces have done. Whether the life poured in will affect the life that comes out, whether her best will be enough, whether the choice will be hers or theirs.
 

The first light, flat envelope has gone in the mail, the first of many. Each just a timid (or maybe not so timid) footprint toward a new path.

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