And then sometimes you win some (Or, feeling less Bridget Jones, more Mary Tyler Moore)
July 03, 2006
Back in early March I came to you, dear readers, whining about how uninspired I was feeling, and wondering about what to do to help turn things around. At the time I mentioned the possibility of applying for a LLM in human rights law. Then I never mentioned the topic again, except when I (very, very) vaguely alluded to it at the end of this entry a few days ago.
Being that I am an extremely superstitious person - a holdover I suppose from my religious, traditional youth - I chose not to mention the fact that, at the last minute (like, seriously, DHL informed me that the application was delivered maybe a half hour before the deadline) with Jing's advice on the essay and Di's enthusiastic encouragement I did in fact apply for that program. And for the past three months I have walked past the front desk of our building, warily eyeing our mailbox - which never holds any mail for me, unless it is an overdue notice from the library - and every day I have gone up to our apartment empty-handed.
But earlier this evening I walked into our building, and the bawab (the door man, though not the fancy kind) followed me into the building, and handed me a slender envelop with the Queen's University logo on it. Conventional American wisdom states that if the envelope is thin, then you didn't get in. So I stepped into the elevator and opened the thin envelope with a heavy heart convinced that I had not been accepted, but also worried that I had. And, well, a picture is worth a thousand words, and you all know where this is going anyway, so:
The pisser of it is that if you had asked me a month or maybe even a couple of weeks ago, I would have told you I'm ready, I'm DYING to go. I was feeling restless and bored. I was getting fed up with the occasionally rocky situation at home. I was feeling like life was passing me by. Di will be leaving Egypt at the end of this month for an amazing new job in another country, and though we've parted ways many times before, this time it just seems harder. And overall it seems like everyone I know and love is moving forward with their lives except for me.
But then Greg came and visited and reminded me of so much of what there is to love about Egypt. The situation at home crescendoed, and then suddenly got better just before exploding. And most recently - too recently to even allow it to be a consideration at all, but there you have it - I met a guy who I think I could really like. I saw him earlier this evening, and I had butterflies in my stomach the whole time as we talked politics, history, childhood, and soccer (but of course). Sadly, he is going home to Germany after tomorrow, and won't be back until mid-August. What we've got going on here is absolutely nothing, but for the first time since I've moved to Egypt I feel like there is someone - in the flesh (and, God, what beautiful flesh it is...) - with whom I could really have something, and I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm alright too. As we parted he told me he'd email while in Germany, wished me luck with getting into the program (I hadn't found out yet), and said that if I do get in and go to Belfast, then I should visit him in Berlin when he goes back there in the spring.
Then I went to see Di and company, and as usual the first thing she asked was, "Still no word?" And the last thing she said before she went home was, "You better let me know as soon as you hear."
And then, just half an hour later, I heard, and my first reaction was that I wanted to cry - not tears of joy or relief, but tears of confusion and anxiety.
And so it seems that if the first motto of my life is, "Close, but no cigar," then the second is, "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it."