Where To Go From Here?

I remember applying to colleges as one of the most stressful periods of my life. It seemed like so much -- my future career, earning potential and even life mate -- hung on the decision I made then. Not to mention the fact that I had tied my self-worth directly to the U.S. News & World Report ranking of the school(s) that accepted me.

Seven days before one round of applications was due, I had an emergency root canal (one the endodontist called the worst he'd seen "in ten years" of oral surgery). Full of painkillers and Valium (I do not do well around the sound of a dentist's drill), I called my best friend and insisted that she drive me to my closed-for-the-Christmas-holidays school, so that I could use the typewriter in the library to put some finishing touches on the common application. 

I was a little obsessed.

When the large and small envelopes finally started rolling in, I was devastated to learn that my first choice [Stanford] didn't want me. Despite my poor attempt at a brave face, I was crushed and spent more than a few afternoons in my car crying.

(Before I sound like too much of a whiner, I would like to acknowledge that I was accepted into some wonderful and amazing schools, and I absolutely believe I ended up right where I needed to be. But, hindsight is always 20/20 as they say.)

The only people this period of my high school career might have been more stressful on than me were my parents. Not only did they have to accept that I seemingly refused to apply anywhere with anything near a reasonable tuition cost, I was anxious, constantly tired  and insecure. Being parents, the moment my rejection from Stanford arrived, they went into protective/consolation mode: "We love you no matter what. This is just a bump in the road. You're brilliant. You're special. You're going to get into so many other schools."

But, I wouldn't have any of it. Every time they tried to console me, I just got more upset. "You don't get it," I said. "I'm not special. I'm just like tens of thousands of other kids out there who make good grades and join clubs and think that it's going to matter."

"You're always special to us."

"Well," I said, "when it comes down to it, I look like everybody else on a sheet of paper, and I'm not special to them. And they're the ones that don't want me."

(I was kind of dark in addition to being a little obsessed.)

If only I had known then that there would be days I feel a lot like that now, too.

I am a writer with dozens of clips -- many from national magazines. But, I'm also an unemployed writer and editor in an era when print media is dying. And thanks to the dire press market in Birmingham, you can't really throw a rock in this town without hitting someone just like me -- many with more experience and better clips. It's a small pond full of writers and editors with great resumes and no magazines or papers to write for. 

So, the thought recurs: I'm not special.

I have been a blogger for five years now, but now I don't even think I know anyone without a blog, and as an unmarried, childless 30-year-old, I don't even have a blog category. I am no longer "young" by most standards -- as in I don't write about clubs, drunken escapades or school. I haven't given birth, so that keeps me out of the "mommy blogger" set. I don't have a wedding in the works, so there's no way to write about flower vendors and mother-in-law issues. Food? I like it, and I occasionally cook it, but I don't have anything to say that you can't find on far better web sites like Food Revival, Cookthink or Simply Recipes (check my favorite sites).

Without a category, I don't have a market share, and without a market share, this blog is never going to make me much more than the $.26 my one ad has brought in in recent weeks.

My market share possibilities? Former party girls who can't afford shoes that don't come from Target? Pet lovers with an extensive collection of Spanx? Those of us who have accepted boxed wine as a party staple?

Not special and without a market share, I keep filling this blog with what I have -- my stories, my voice, my bouts of depressive thinking. I use it to make myself write. I try to remember to exercise the skills that I need -- showing v. telling, using dialogue, setting scenes and avoiding the empty words and phrases that have no examples or illustrations to flesh them out.

When I started this blog, I wanted to write 365 blog posts, so that I'dhave 365 stories/anecdotes written down. (I also started this blogbecause my friends seemed tired of my mass e-mails detailing what Ithought about that day's episode of Cheaters, but I digress.) Plus, atthe time, I never imagined I wouldn't have something else to take up mytime long before I hit that far-off and absurd number of 365 posts. This is my 402nd post, and thanks to my tendency to write aboutCheaters and what Tori Spelling wore to her second wedding, I'm noteven sure I have 365 stories to go along with it. Sigh.

One of my teachers once told me, "Most of the stories have beentold. The only difference is that there's never been a you to tellthem."

I tell my students this. I try to tell myself this. If Iwere to have a mantra, I think it'd have to be something aboutbelieving in my own voice.

At least when I finished high school, the gave me a copy of Oh, The Places You'll Go. (At least it was optimistic.) I think I could use the sequel now.

P.S. Oddly enough, I sort of love Tori Spelling these days. I blame the Oxygen network.