The Dream Dreamed, and Answered

Today is my 90th posting on this blog, but there will never be a more important one. That's because I am celebrating my son, who learned late last night that he has been accepted into the college of his choice—a prestigious communications school far enough away, but not too far from home. Years ago this guy started writing—has written a screenplay a week since sixth grade. He's got a jazzier style than I'll ever have, conjures sweeter dialogue, and if he isn't keeping you on the edge of his seat with his plotlines, he's got you bobbing your head at the rap songs he funnels through, behind the scenes. He wants to write, my kid, but he wants to do way more than that. He knows the power of media. He feels at home behind a camera. He's mastering the technology of sound.

But the school of his dreams got overloaded with applications—this school, the only one he could imagine himself enrolled in, going to, the one whose sweatshirt I'd been wearing like a talisman since August. The admissions folks didn't announce on Saturday, as they thought they would. Too much to sort through, they said. They needed time. And so the days ticked on, the hours, and it was clear, increasingly clear, that this journey could split into many roads, that we had to be prepared for any answer.

So that when he received an email in his bin at 8 o'clock last night that a decision had been posted on a certain web site, his first response was, I don't think I'm ready to know; let's have dinner first. We did. When the chicken was cleared away, he said, I'm going outside. He went. Only after he'd finished doing whatever talking to himself that he needed to do did he come back inside. Only then did he run upstairs, leaving my husband and me in suspense. The door closed. The door opened. He was running down the hall.

Every child takes a journey, and I do believe that the right doors open for the right reasons, that we can't always know the greater plan. I am simply grateful today for the dream that was dreamed and answered here. I send my heart out to all those who are living through the wanting, the waiting, the not knowing, the knowing this season.