The World Will End When My World Ends

  I have built my life on the belief that I was destined to be a writer. Shakespeare was more a friend to me growing up than any of the people I went to school with. I loved to read , therefore I learned a love of writing. So I studied myself raw and numb in high school in order to get into a good college so I could continue the pursuit of my difficult dream. I was accepted into my good university where I learned to consider myself at the top of the writing food chain. I was an English major. I was on my surely destined path to writing greatness! I graduated with honor after academic honor. Surely my destiny would be guaranteed?
  Yet, after 3 agonizing years of retail and an atrophying spirit, I do not have the experience to land any real writing jobs. Caught in an horrible Catch-22 existence, I consulted a very nice man who ran a small publishing company. He confirmed what I had been thinking for months. In order to get a leg up on my competition, I needed to go back to school and get my graduate degree. So, I researched all the universities in my area that offered the MFA I seek. What do I find out? That my program only accepts about 30 people during each enrollment period. Not only that, but that resumes and transcripts mean very little in their consideration of who they let in.
  So the degree that put my parents in the poorhouse, the degree that I worked hard for, means very little in the bigger picture of my life. I have to rely solely on my talent as a writer. What I am worried about the most is that what if I am not good enough? What if I am not meant to be a writer? Do I lay down my pen and my happiness? Do I have to waste my whole life at a job that makes me bitter and numb? The graduate program I desperately need to be accepted into only accepts about 18% of applicants. That one little number stands as a monumental obstacle between my dream and myself. What an unfair world! The application deadline is the beginning of October, and then I am sure they make their decisions within a month or two. So I can only pray that come the winter, when my destiny is decided and sent to me in a harmless-looking envelope, that the world will really end if the news is bad. I would rather be dead than spend even one more year dead inside.