Sorry, I haven’t been updating this blog recently, but this past week, I’ve been incredibly busy with my orientation at Columbia University. For those who don’t know, I’m attending Columbia to get my MFA in Creative Writing. This is an incredibly prestigious program and one that I’ve dreamed about being a part of since I was a kid. However, now I’m scared. This is still something that I want but looking around at the people who are in the program with me, I can’t help but feel as if I’m not interesting, creative, good enough to be amongst everyone I’ve met so far.
For my first year of undergrad at the University of Michigan, I had really bad imposter syndrome. I barely left my dorm because I was too afraid that I would embarrass myself just by trying to get the life I had always wanted. By my sophomore year, that was all past as I had joined a sorority and a few other clubs. However, I fear that I might get stuck in that rut of not doing anything again. Everyone I’ve met has been incredibly nice, but starting over in a new city where everyone around you seems to have already gotten their lives figured out is intimidating.
A lot of my colleagues have relationships, jobs, and publishing deals. Everything that I want, but I don’t yet have. It may be because I’m one of the youngest in the program at the whopping age of 22, but deep down I feel like it’s because I’m not as good as everyone else. The professors I’ve met have all said that we all belong there, but I’m still trying to find that feeling to be true. It might happen in my first week of classes or when my workshop critiques one of my pieces. I hope that time comes soon because with a sense of belonging comes a sense of hope that everything will be alright.
When you’re all alone in a new place with no way to navigate anything at all, you start to lose that sense that anything will possibly be okay. I’ve been in New York for about three weeks now, and they’ve been a few of the hardest weeks of my life. I hope that once I finally get some structure in my life like when classes start and I get a job (*fingers crossed*). I can finally have something to do with my days besides dream and stare at my phone. The day that I find that community, that true sense of belonging, I’ll let you know. Until then, I’m just going to keep dreaming, and keep trying to pave around the city. And, hopefully, those dreams will eventually come true!
By Allison Penski
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