It really wasn't until recently...maybe the last three years...that I returned to dreaming up big scenarios for my life. I have kept myself fairly convinced for the last 21 years and change that I would never amount to anything, because who earns a full ride to Duke University at a young age and then loses it by getting knocked up and dropping out of high school? While success is a subjective term, that isn't really a story you hear much about in circles of people that are considered successful in the broadest of social terms. I kind of just...resigned myself to being nothing. Which is not who I was when I was younger.
Little me had big dreams. I don't know if it's like, a prerequisite of all little kids who are born in prestigous college towns, but being a child of Ithaca, I wanted to go to Cornell University. Well, I mean...kind of. When I was a child, I wanted to be Madonna, and then I wanted to be a Rockette, and any alums are welcome to correct me, but I don't think Cornell offers classes in either of those careers. I think around the age of six was when I landed on being a veterinarian. Someone in my family told me that Cornell had a veterinary program...one of the best in the country...and I wanted that. I wanted that bad. I spent years idolozing Cornell, kind of...assuming that's where I would go? I guess as a kid it's hard to conceptualize ideas like "competitive application process" and "high GPA" as factors in your When I Grow Up daydreams. Especially when adults never tell you that sort of thing until you're in high school, and even then it's used more as like...a cudgel with which to beat you into a perpetual state of fear so you'll actually give a shit about your homework.
Nobody told me that Cornell was competitive, really. If I'm being honest, I'm not terribly sure how much of an interest my parents took in the practicality of my dreams for myself? And I will say for them that I do not think that as an additional layer of them being disinterested, terrible parents...I say that because EVERY MOMENT OF MY LIFE was a daydream. I had plans and ideas for everything I did, every mundane little thing, and I always made them impossibly big. In fifth grade, we had a project where we had to write a small play. Small. SMALL. Starring just us, so really more like a one person show. We had to perform it for the class. I do not know why this was an assignment we had, I just remember that we had it. I think I've written about this assignment before, if only in a small snippet, as this was the first time I was introduced to the word "famished" by another student in my class, and I was obsessed with it. It still rings in my head with exceptionally aggravating echolalic persistence, and it's been...what, 30 years?
Anyway, in my fantasy play, I fashioned myself a dress that made me look like Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz, and I would sing Tears for Fears' Sowing the Seeds of Love, and Daveda, Taneesha, and Janice (my besties) would harmonize together as the chorus, dressed in normal clothes because my imagination didn't stretch far enough to make them opulent, I guess. And of course, after my performance everybody would be clapping and would love it...and me....and herald me as a star. Now obviously, the whole fantasy falls down for several reasons, most prominent among them being that wasn't even close to the assignment, singing a song would have given me a big o'l F for not fucking doing a PLAY as I had been asked. When it came time to actually do the play, I was marked down for honing in too far on the details and not offering up anything coherent. Which is fucking harsh criticism, if I'm being honest. I was in fifth grade, and I can't assume she was expecting Lorraine Hansberry levels of storytelling. My play was about cooking a meal in the kitchen, and I will 1000% grant Mrs. Nathanson that I really did lazer in on the minutiae of the scene. I drew a frying pan, and separetely drew an egg, and I spent the bulk of my performance time shaking my drawn pan and drawn egg together in what I perceived as a very chefly action and saying, "sizzle sizzle sizzle".
Given that this was the foundation of reality I was living in at any given moment in my mind, I have to assume my parents and anybody around me understood that injecting even the slightest hint of reality into my fantasies was fruitless, and it was easier to let me dream my little dreams. You know that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where the last golden ticket has been announced as found, and Charlie's family doesn't wake him up to tell him, they say to just let him sleep and have one last dream, except Charlie is laying awake in his bed and gutted over his hopes being dashed? I bet my family was like the Buckets, except I had absolutely none of the self awareness of Charlie, and lived in a perpetual state of Wonka thought. Wonka like vision with Bucket like accessibility.
All of this to say that I really had no idea what it meant, wholly and truly, to want Cornell University for myself. How could I when nobody told me? I also think another piece of the puzzle is that I had always shown myself to be...pardon the audacity...fucking brilliant scholastically. I was reading at a REALLY young age. Both of my parents have said I started reading at around three, and it never occurred to me that this has always perhaps been less a testament to my genius, and more a testament to their parenting skills? I digress, the point remains that this is the age I was told I started reading. I caught on to concepts exceptionally fast, I was good at memorizing things, I loved learning. As I got older, Magnet schools in Florida were hot on my tail. They wanted in on that sweet, sweet brainy child goodness. So having dreams of Cornell might not have actually seemed all that out of reach, given that I was a brilliant kid, always had been, I was a fucking stupid strong test taker, and really just an all around strong contender for "person who will grow up to be SOMEBODY". I was never really told Cornell was out of my reach.
I made my own Cornell swag. This was how hard I wanted to go to Cornell. I couldn't get access to real merch from the school, but I wanted to transmit my desires in a tangible aesthetic. So. I made my own swag. Back in the 90s, my mom worked at a car dealership where she would occasionally take me in to work with her. And being very bored, I was given access to some of the technically offline computers to play with. One day, I decided to make a Cornell pennant. I wanted to have my own pennant to hang on the wall of my room to look at and use as a daily reminder of where I wanted to go, and who I wanted to be. Cute, right? Fucking adorable. Even cuter when you think about the kinds of printers that were available in the 90s. I tried to make myself a Cornell pennant with a dot matrix printer. Which went about as awry as you would expect it to, it was an impractical ask for that technology. But no biggie, I did my best to make it work. I printed a big ol' letter on each piece of paper...seven pieces of paper in total...taped them all together...colored them in red and white because obviously...and THEN tried to cut it into the pennant shape. Do you know how hard it is to do that? Because I do. And I know how hard it is because I fucking failed at doing it. But that didn't stop me from hanging my homemade pennant on my bedroom wall. I wonder if my sister remembers that? I'll have to ask her (I am asking her right now, and she has yet to respond, but I will update this story as the situation unfolds. Edited to add: she does not remember). This pennant was so fucking ugly, as one must absolutely assume. I'm vaguely artistically inclined, but there really is only so much a kid my age could do with a dot matrix printer, and fine tuning a homemade pennant was not among the items of possible. It was so fucking misshapen, and rough, and I honestly think Cornell would have sent me straight to jail if they ever laid eyes on it, but I had so much love for going there that I kept it up on the wall for a long, long time. I am unsure why I took it down...I actually think it might have been left up for a year or two, until I got wind of Duke being a very real possibility for me, and then I think I did the same thing after getting that full ride, except I learned my lesson and just printed DUKE on a piece of paper per letter. No shaping it into a triangle. See? Smart.
I am currently on the phone with my dad right now asking about my love for Cornell and when it started. He said I was about 6 or 7 when I first stated that I wanted to go to Cornell, so I was mostly correct, just a little bit off on the timeline. My dad told me I was 6 or 7 when I said I wanted to be a veterinarian, and I wanted to get my vet education at Cornell. So, there we go. A bit of clarity.
Back to my lemonade stand style merch: I also made myself a Cornell shirt. I had a white shirt that was way too big for me, probably something I got from my dad's that I just took home, and I used permanent markers to color CORNELL in big, red letters. I do not think I took the time to bother fashioning the letters out in the college font, I think I just wrote CORNELL, unevenly and sloppily, across the front of the shirt in the biggest letters I could spatially reason. I asked my dad if he recalled either of these things, he says he does not. Oh, well. I can still hold out hope that my sister remembers!
I do not think I so much gave up on my dream of Cornell as I traded it in for Duke. I had all of these Magnet programs seeking me out for enrollment, and one of them focused on a pre-law curriculum for students who showed extreme aptitude in cognition and verbal acuity. I am not sure why I didn't get to go to any of these schools, though if I had to hazard a guess, transportation to and from was the issue. My mom had a full time job, and I don't think the magnet schools were very close by, so getting me there and back would have been a huge stumbling block. I am unsure of the timeline here, but I was also invited to take an SAT test at a very young age. I think I was 12 or 13. Young. Way younger than most kids take their SATs. And I scored high as fuck. Way higher than a 12 or 13 year old should have any right to score. I think I scored in the 1400 range, with damn near immacualte scores on everything but math. Math has been, and always will be, my lifelong nemesis. My gut wants to say 1405, but it could have been higher. I just know that after that, I got pegged for all kinds of testing. An IQ test, which I scored really high on (fun note from the past: IQ tests are racist as fuck! Thanks, eugenics, I fucking hate it!), and an invitation to take the college entrance exam for Duke. Except...I've always kind of wondered if this was a fever dream, like...I just have been telling this lie to myself? So I just went on a journey to find out whether or not this was an actual thing. It sure was, it was called Duke TIP, and it's a whole thing that I will unpack another day, because this blog will never fucking end if I do it now, but wow. The program JUST stopped running in 2021, too. Anyway, moving on. I opted to take the ACT instead of the SAT....and I should have been tipped off, pardon the pun, in my memory...that this was a Duke entrance exam and not another SAT/ACT test, because...I mean, it was absolutely a Duke entrance exam of sorts, but not the way that I have always perceived it....I really am going to have to do a whole blog on this Duke mess because I had so much to punpack here. I was supposed to go hiking today and I am STILL at home, hours later, sussing all of this out for a blog I have completely fucking lost the plot of.
Let's get back on track, shall we? Yes. I think yes.
I traded Cornell in for Duke, but Cornell has been a longing in the back of my heart for my entire life. When Derek and I took the kids to Ithaca on our family trip a few years ago, and we went on campus, my soul felt so gloriously at home (and we will unpack Cornell's hideous fucking history at a later time, because for real, I am losing the plot. But I am fully aware of how fucked up Cornell is, and its legacy is awful, and I wish I could train my heart to get over Cornell, but it's so fucking hard). I looked up jobs at Cornell, because Derek said he kind of loved Ithaca and he would be fine moving there when he was done with the army. I found a job there that was perfectly in line with my values and career goals, and I started trying to move my way toward that job. I have held on fast to having some part of something to do with Cornell, because that little girl who made her own Cornell merch because she couldn't get any other access to it would be so proud of us. And being a lifelong fan of the smug uterrance of "I TOLD YOU SO!", I want nothing more than for that little beebee with big dreams of the ivy league to get into Cornell.
I have always dreamed big, because what other way to dream was there? If you're going to imagine something for yourself, even if it can't possibly become reality, fucking go all in. I have lived by that. One of the saddest things in life is when you get dealt a hand that forces you to stop dreaming big, because there is just no point. all it does is further depress your waking life, because reality is so fucking hard and seems so futile that daring to picture a life where you have even one small sliver of sunshine is an absolute soul crushing reminder of how dreams do not come true. I stopped dreaming when I got pregnant with my oldest and realized that I would more than likely be stuck with an abusive nothing of a man that only wanted to knock me up repeatedly and keep me powerless and docile. When I made the hardest decision in the world to leave them behind temporarily to dig myself out of the dreamless hole I was in, and subsequently lost all access to my child for the next 15 years, I remained steadfast in my refusal to dream, because all of my dreams would have been of them. And if you've never lost a child, or lost access to a child, you have no idea how that kind of loss drains you dry. I sent in a postsecret once of a picture of my oldest as a barely two year old toddler, somersaulting in my favorite dress of theirs, in my old angora Kanga bucket hat, that said in big, bold letters, "It is so much easier to make people think you're dead than it is to tell myself the truth. I am so sorry". It hurt too much to dream of a life with them in it, so I didn't bother to dream of any life at all. Fast forward to after I had Alex, and I wouldn't say I started day dreaming of any size to speak of, but I started wanting things for my life again. I left her dad because he was content to stagnate, and I wasn't. I wanted to blossom upward. I got a job, but it didn't have to be serious, I just worked to live and have fun. I was still in my early twenties. I had Rhyann when I was 18, and Alex when I was 22. I held shit jobs that hired me because I was pretty (several employers told me this), I dated nobodies, I had settled into this groove of not blossoming, but tricking myself into thinking I was making progress with myself. I wasn't, but I didn't have to? Your twenties is when you should be figuring yourself out, and I will forever contend that like...my motivations for living life the way I did weren't great, but I still ended up in the right place.
By the time I met Dan, I was at the peak of my fun, carefree bullshit. No prospects, no dreams, but all manner of drugs, alcohol, and batshit fun nights after being a responsible mom all day. Dan essentially negged me into dreaming again, except I wasn't really dreaming for me. I was dreaming for Dan. I will never ever be able to say this with real world certainty, but I think Dan truly thought of me as absolutely worthless except for being a fun way to waste his time in Colorado Springs until he could move on to the real start of his life. A distraction he could fuck, a plaything that wasn't really on his level. I am forced to come to that conclusion because Dan never told his family about me, Dan didn't really tell his friends about me until the death knells of our relationship began chiming (though I was allowed to meet his local friend David, and I think that's about as safe as it gets, since David had no ties to Dan's friends who had a closer spot to his reality center), and even then, I have no fucking idea in what capacity I was mentioned. I was so god damn desperate for Dan's approval that I dreamed up scenarios where I was worthy of his time. College was it. I convinced myself that Dan wanted someone amazing on paper, and that, while Dan always seemed genuinely impressed (and startled, which is unendingly offensive in retrospect) by my intelligence, it wasn't tangible in the way that the first girlfriend of any seriousness he ever told me about after me was. She was a nurse. He told me about her by introducing her as a pretty nurse, which....great for her, love that life...but it cemented the idea to me that Dan wanted someone he could introduce as an aesthetic adjective painted on to a respectable profession. I hadn't been that when we were together, and I have long been certain that was why he didn't love me in a way that felt like love. I enrolled in college to be who I thought he wanted. That was his dream, not mine. I caught on eventually, dropped out of business administration a few credits shy of my BS, and enrolled instead in psychology, the college major of all girls who have relationship damage and sexual trauma. We're a cult, I'm pretty sure.
That was really the beginning of my dreaming again? Not big, but...not nothing. It wasn't until I got accepted for my graduate degree, and was lucky enough to have my oldest back in my life, that I felt ok to dream. And my dreams were getting big. Realistically big, but voluminous just the same. I applied for internships and was praised for the work I've done for my community. I dreamed some more. I wondered about earning my PhD and moving the needle on the liberation movements I have been engaging in over the last six years of my anti-blackness journey. People in my life starting bigging me up, praising my efforts. Even today, when I was talking to my dad, he was telling me he really sees me as the kind of person that will facilitate change in the ways that I see as meaningful. My husband says the same thing. I always brush it off as the rose-tinted glasses of unadulterated love and adoration, but the back of my mind tingles with the "what ifs?" of it all.
When I was awarded my MA with a 3.777 (3.8, if you please. Math has taught me to round, so I will forever round to the nearest tenth), I told myself I was done with academia. I had spent the last two years of my undergrad, and my entire graduate degree, excoriating academia for its white supremacy, heteronormativity, and ableism. Everything I wrote was pointing out the lack of inclusion, the intentionality of baselining entire fields on white, cisgender, able bodied men, and being unrelenting about how fucking much this shit neds to change, and it is sickening to me that academia is intentionally failing billions of people because white supremacy just can't fucking help itself. When I graduated I told my husband, "I am fucking done with academia. I am so god damn exhausted" and I have been luxuriating in the break and free time, but really...my free time is now spent becoming a member of grassroots organizations. Different forms of activism. And I have been wondering, maybe I really do need a PhD to make academia see us. See marginalized identities as worthwhile. And I've been dreaming of how to make that a reality.
And here we are, I didn't lose the plot, I just took a long time to get there.
I have seven programs I am looking at applying to. On a whim, I looked at Cornell to see if they have a PhD program in Human Development, and they do. They do! And I wondered about applying.
When I say I have been going over and over and over applying to Cornell for weeks now, I mean it. I have sent voice messages to my friends. I have talked to my husband about it again and again. I reflect on the little girl I was decades ago, with her makeshift Cornell shirt standing in front of her makeshift Cornell pennant, and I think to myself, "apply. Apply for her".
But...all things being equal...Cornell's program fucking SUCKS. It is so lackluster and boring that it made me want to look into all of the other ivies to see what their programs are like. And I've come to the conclusion that most ivies...you're really only getting the benefit of saying you graduated from an ivy. I told my dad that a PhD from Cornell would be like a skeleton key; it more than likely would open any door for me, and seat me at any table, that I wanted to be at. Is that worth it? In terms of everything I stand for...I have decided that it really is not.
The schools I have chosen as the finalists in my search are, in order:
CU Denver (two programs here, a PhD and an EdD)
Michigan State University
Montclair University (this program is GREAT, but like...it's also in Jersey? Points off for being in Jersey. If it weren't in Jersey, it would be first. And that is not an exaggeration)
University of Wisconsin - Madison
And bringing up the rear, we have Cornell.
The only fucking reason Cornell is on my list is because it's Cornell, and I feel like I owe it to that sad, pathetic, pennant made with all of the love, hope, and optimism that young me had in her bones. I academically lust over Cornell...or at the very least could maybe be coerced into thinking Cornell is hot enough to academically fuck while drunk...because it was the very first dream I wanted for myself. That is proving so hard to let go of, despite knowing that the history of Cornell is as fucked as everything else (but really, what university, aside from HBCUs where I empirically do NOT belong because fucking duh, isn't steeped in mega shitty white supremacy? Shit, even the legacy of HBCUs is steeped in white supremacy, just....in opposition and beautiful defiance of it. Because of it just the same, but...well, yeah. We all know what I'm saying), despite knowing that the Human Development PhD program at Cornell is absolute garbage, and despite knowing that I can get a far more interesting education for far far FAR less money.
I feel like it is not nothing that I could apply to Cornell. Would I be rejected? Swiftly. They have a 13% acceptance rate into their PhD program, and I am sitting amongst the sludge at the bottom of their competitive applicant barrel, but I'm competitive just the same. I also feel like it's not nothing that I fully understand thatI do not want Cornell in an actual, tangible way. Cornell can eat my whole ass academically, because from where I sit, their program cannot hold a candle to fucking MONTCLAIR UNIVERSITY. Montclair. A state school in Jersey gives me more excitement in every way other than longitudinal desire than Cornell, a school that is said to be one of the best in the nation. In what fucking world should that be possible?
I mean...this one, I think. I told my dad that I'm fairly convinced Cornell...along with all seven other ivies...know they don't ACTUALLY have to bring an A game. The name does all of the work for them. People flock to Cornell not for the actual academics, but because of the name (and also it is the easiest of the ivies to gain acceptance into at 13%, with...I think Harvard being next at EIGHT. Eight fucking percent acceptance. No, wait, I think Harvard was 4.4%). Ivy thirsty prestige chasers are gonna go where they can because they want the prestige the name offers, everything else is secondary. Hopw do the academics of Cornell even stack up? I don't care. I think people will say what they want to say about Cornell, and people will say what they want to say about CU Denver not being able to hold a candle to Cornell, and a PhD from CU Denver is a joke if Cornell is even an option. I contend that the program at Cornell is fucking abysmal, and I would be a god damn idiot if I opted for a PhD from a place that doesn't care enough to try and interest potential candidates in any way other than offering up a name. Gag me, but not in a sexy, nighttime kind of way.
I have a meeting with a faculty member from CU Denver coming up, I just don't know when (we are currently working on a time we are both available, since each of us have very demanding schedules). I haven't reached out to the other schools to express interest yet, because I'm trying to whittle it down to three, even tthough...maybe I should leave it at five. I am a top of my class student, but PhD programs are still notoriously hard to get accepted into, so perhaps I should cast a wide net? I don't know what the right move is, but I do know that CU Denver is the school that has two programs I am truly excited at the prospect of, and everything else is second.
The Cornell dream is a ghost. It is persistent, but there, and bothering me in a way that feels unreal. I am on the fence about applying. Derek and I joked the other night that if I actually apply, I should shame them about their boring ass program, their lack of diversity in the specialties of the faculty, and use that as a bullying tactic into getting an acceptance letter. Kinda funny, but I mean...it's all rooted in reality. The program is boring, their faculty is boring, Cornell is fucking dull. I can't determine if I want to apply or not. On the merits of the program, I really cannot say no thank you enough. I understand that the desire is purely to satisfy a long standing itch, and I don't know what to do with that.
I have asked my friends, and results are mixed. Stevie and Bri say I should just leave it to my memory museum as a beautiful little fantasy. Amber and Derek say I should apply, because what if? Would I kick myself forever for wondering and thinking that there is the slightest chance of getting in? Do I feel like fucking around with 105 bucks of an application fee and writing a super tailored statement of purpose to either be swiftly rejected by my dream school, or get accepted to an interview weekend with my dream school, just to say "no thanks, you're actually garbage"?
I think I have no idea what I should reasonably do with a dead dream that I have outgrown. I feel like I keep saying the answer, and the answer is to just...fucking drop it. Cornell was for someone eighteen lifetimes ago who doesn't exist anymore. I am really struggling to do that, though. I suppose the real heart of the matter here is....
Do I really and truly want to apply to Cornell to come full circle on a lifelong dream, or am I just fucking autistic and can't unshake a hyperfixation? I do not know the answer yet.
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