That Sound Is Me, Hyperventilating.

So. I haven’t so much as commented on a blog in a few days, because I have been occupied with a desperate bid to fulfill all–well, most–of my wildest dreams in one fell swoop. To kill a passel of pecking birds with one well-aimed stone. My god, the clichés! You see how worked up I am? I don’t know where to start—and I don’t know whether this is because I never write well when I am nervous or because I have had cramps on and off for two months—which is rather wearing, let me tell you—or because I haven’t slept more than two consecutive hours since Sunday.
Here’s my best shot:
The last time I graduated from anything I was twelve years old. I was graduating from elementary school, as the fifth grade band played a halting Pomp and Circumstance. I will save the entry about high school for another day, because I simply do not have the energy to write it now. Come to think of it, I will save the college entry for a later time as well. The short version is this: I was a very bad girl in high school, but I talked my way into Sarah Mawr, an esteemed liberal arts college, to study writing and philosophy. I left Sarah Mawr after my second year, after a brief hospitalization for stomach problems exacerbated by a reaction to the estrogen in birth control pills. I returned from New York to Minnesota, talked my way into a graduate writing workshop, and dropped out again to start a magazine. I spent a few years scrambling for funding for said magazine’s print costs, arguing with designers, and trying with a touching sincerity to provide a venue for emerging artists. I never finished my BA. A few pieces of my own were published, I tutored and taught, I got work as a freelancer.
But as it turns out I am not well suited to the stress of running a nonprofit literary magazine and living pen to mouth on sporadic freelance assignments.
I wanted to teach, to write, and to have a family—god help me.
I wanted to get into an MFA program, to finally have a degree to call my own, to find a paying job teaching writing at the college level to people to love it and volunteering my time teaching writing to high school students and immigrants—people who need it. I wanted to have the opportunity to concentrate on my book, to take writing workshops in the evening and care for my Hypothetical Baby by day.
This was the plan. Some of mine and the Nearly’s conflicts about treatment time have had to do with the fact that I am not there yet, not in a graduate program, still degreeless and vulnerable and working at a full-time job. The Nearly wants me to be at least applying to an MFA program—i.e. finished with my BA—before we start treatment. Finishing is problematic for a serious of stultifyingly boring reasons, most of which have to do with the fact that Sarah Mawr did not have required classes, and completing my degree elsewhere will force me to spend thousands of dollars and time I do not have to take a full load of lectures such as “Ecology 101” and “Diversity: People of Color are People Too.” I have tried this a few times with online programs and have not had much luck. Partly I am lazy, partly I am just being a baby. I do not want to finish my BA. I have quite a bit of a BA and years of writing and editing and publication experience. I have judged fiction contests and taken graduate classes as a non-admitted student and figured out what “kerning” is. I do not want to move backward.
I have tried to talk my way into an MFA program, and nearly succeeded, except the non-writing-program part of the graduate school refused to consider my application. So, fine. I will do what I have to do. And finishing my BA is what I have to do.
Except…
Sunday night I heard about a woman who was admitted into a different, newer, local MFA program without her BA. I sent her an email, and the next morning was on the phone to the assistant dean, who was not wildly optimistic, but told me to submit a letter explaining my situation and a writing sample to The Dean Of The Program via email to see if she will grant me permission to apply. If she does, the application deadline (20 pg manuscript, letters of recommendation, essays) would be March 15th.
Writing the letter—possibly the most important document I have ever composed, but no pressure!—was excruciating and took nearly five hours. Miss Rothschild hissed in my ear the entire time.

I sent my plea on Monday*, and now I am waiting to hear whether I can change the shape of my life with the force of chutzpah alone.

I cannot sit still long enough to read a blog entry. Of course I am also rushing to check my email every few minutes—I wake up during the night and dash to my computer, in case The Dean Of The Program decided to catch up on her correspondence between the hours of one and four o’ clock in the morning. I drink tumblers of vodka and watch Tru Calling and occasionally burst into jumping jacks, the jumping jacks of anxiety.

I can not tell you how badly I want this. I do not know how to explain how much this would mean to me. I am afraid to so much as try to do so, because I do not want to feel foolish when it does not work out.

Please, Please, Please.

*Updated: Yes, it was Monday, not Tuesday as I had previously written. Even the days of the week are too much for me at the moment, apparently.