I received my acceptance package from MICA in the mail on Saturday.  Despite my uncertainty about what I'd like to do after my AmeriCorps*VISTA year ends on June 24th, being accepted into a supposedly very competitive graduate program is a validating experience.  My scholarship letter cites my "outstanding qualifications" and "superior achievement in visual arts."  I may be hard on myself much of the time, but these words do manage to make me feel like perhaps the struggle of my undergraduate years and the hard work I have put in afterward was good for something.

Incidentally, my entire visual art portfolio was photography even though I concentrated in painting for my BFA.  Once again I am reminded of the intense struggle I felt every day in the painting studio.  I continually felt unable to live up to my professors' expectations and unable to compete with my peers.  How much of this came from my own high standards for myself I will never know, but I do think one professor in particular made me realize painting was not my true calling.  He was passionate, maybe even maniacal, about painting and favored students who felt -- or at least expressed themselves -- similarly.  He must have seen some sort of potential in me or he never would have tried to push me so hard, but I always ended up feeling like he was trying to wrench something out of me that just wasn't there.

In the end, I have realized (or rediscovered, since I was hell-bent on becoming a professional musician between fourth and tenth grade) that I just do not think visually.  It is why I cannot draw objects from memory and struggle to draw from a subject sitting in front of me.  It is why I painted more for the experience of the paint than I did for the images.  Maybe it is even why I often get lost, unable to visualize a map in my head.  Certainly it is why I found 4 Weeks to an Organized Life With AD/HD to be so unhelpful.

But if I'm not a visual thinker, why this continued interest in the visual arts?  Why am I still drawn to photography, and why did I submit a portfolio to a visual arts graduate program?

I really think photography allows me freedom from my inability to visualize.  I am at home behind the viewfinder because for once, my image has been laid out before me in perfect detail.  I can adjust angles and depth of field, work little by little until I have the frozen image that explains the scene exactly as I saw and felt it.  There is no other way to preserve it.  I adore photographs because they preserve a thought, a memory in a way my mind usually cannot. 

While I can always remember the tone of a voice that has called my name, photographs allow me to look into the eyes of someone I have lost.  They also evoke the spirit of a scene as I felt it at the moment I released the shutter.  While I dream of taking a sketchpad, india ink, and brushes along on an upcoming trip to Europe, I know I shouldn't even bother.  I should buy a special journal and an extra memory card.  I should take hundreds, even thousands of photographs.  I should write out all the words in my head while I'm sitting outside a cafe in Venice because this is how I will capture it.

As I continue to explore who I am, not who I convince myself to be, I am learning all over again that I think in music and eloquent words, but I see through my photographs.

Becoming a college student again: it's a thought that rolled around my mind many times today. As I made my journey through Bolton Hill, crossing Mount Royal Avenue on foot and strolling into the heart of the MICA campus, I slipped between scores of art students on their way to and from class and surprised myself at how well I blended in. I looked like one of them, for sure, and for the first time I was adrift in a sea of people like me.

This was hardly a homecoming experience. After spending many months of my undergraduate career wishing I could share company with people like me, after eagerly plotting my escape from James Rouse's utopian city because I feel like there isn't a soul I can relate to in the whole town, the irony is not lost on me.

Suddenly I had to ask myself, is this where I will reach my full potential? Running up against everyone's expectations – family, friends, portfolio reviewers, teachers, even myself -- I am left with the realization that this choice is my own, and I need to approach it one-on-one, leaving all those others behind. So I am left alone to navigate this space in my life and land upon what is right for me at this moment.

My fullest potential may be waiting for me somewhere completely unlikely, a place where I will truly shine. Though I may still look like a college student on the outside, on the inside I already feel very far removed from the university. I question whether I want to fight this inertia and change direction now, when I have so much momentum in such a positive direction. I question whether I have ever stood above the rest and thrived in a place where everyone is reaching for the same thing.

In the end, it's all just choices, kinks and bends in a path that keeps leading me forward. Again I am reminded that promise is everywhere, that is one of the blessings of my life, and for now the biggest hardship is choosing between two parallel opportunities.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the whole grad school equation and how it fits into my other immediate goals. Many people have told me I am trying to do too much, and for the most part I have dismissed them as not knowing me, not knowing my ideal operating conditions. Doing too much is in my nature. How would I survive without that constant pressure?

There comes a time, though, when I do question myself and wonder what privilege has been afforded me that I don't need to listen to others' advice. Maybe everyone else is right. But then what of my plans?

As a rule, I tend to over-plan my life. This would not be a problem if I was just trying to be prepared for any outcome, but I am most often creating a complex, carefully constructed ideal view of my future. With this mindset I set myself up for failure and disappointment every time.

Slowly, I am realizing I have to know how to be at peace with any solution. In the long term, I won't get anywhere by trying to achieve every single goal to its fullest. Everyone knows I can set goals and achieve them. I have nothing to prove but my ability to set the right goals and maintain my sanity.

So what of my plans?

Part of me has always felt I am entitled to an advanced degree: to be categorized in a certain way by my family, to feel satisfied with myself, and to prove that I stand on even ground with my partner if he chooses to go back to school. The only problem is, none of these are really great reasons to commit more money and years to my education. There are many definitions of success, and just as I have proven that success does not mean the highest-paying job, I need to realize success does not mandate a master's degree, either.

I would be truly happy in the MACA program at MICA, and I doubtless have the capacity to dedicate my life to it and be very successful. It is “what I want to do,” but it is one outcome out of many. My decision to return or not return to school is just that. It is not a betrayal of myself, my parents, or anyone who has written me a letter of recommendation.

For sure, I will apply to the MACA program. Until the reply deadline of April 1st, I will keep it in my hands as piece to my puzzle, turning it this way and that to see how it could fit.

But then there are other plans, other successes: moving to Baltimore, buying a house, getting a “real job,” saving money for someday children, settling into a life that promises to last more than a year or two. If going back to school compromises my personal career more than it promises to advance it, maybe I will defer for a year. Maybe I will accept the job that will surely be waiting to meet me at the end of my VISTA year. After all, they say one year at this particular job is equal to seven years experience in the non-profit world. There is no way I can fail to find a good job I will love.

I need to create my own definition of success and figure out what is most important to me. I cannot have everything I ever wanted, nor can I resent the fact that I chose one positive outcome over the other. And really, that's what I'm doing. My life is full of fantastic options. I can't have them all, but I can pick and choose to find the winning combination. After all, isn't that what makes options great?

I've always been successful in life, but the question I am asking myself now is, did I finesse it? Sure, I've proven time and again that I can sidestep prioritizing by working on everything at once. My life is reaching a point, though, where I want to slow down and take the time to do a few things very well. I guess it's not about fitting all the pieces into the puzzle, but collecting a lot of pieces so I can choose the ones that make the best picture.

Seriously, it has been so hard to get back to work since spending a week and a half in Pennsylvania for the holidays.

With less than a month until my self-imposed deadline for the MICA application, there is a lot to do, especially factoring in a week-long ski vacation in late January.  I'm just glad I have a few things going for me.  In the past, I have always “worked on” portfolios, going out on a lot of shoots or spending long hours painting in my room.  The need to develop a portfolio in response to an application deadline has been the primary source of stress time after time, and it feels great to be able to draw from a strong pool of images I have already produced.  

I have enough photos for the MICA portfolio in each of my two primary bodies of work.  This means I can skim off the cream from both of them, drawing my descriptions from the artist statements I HAVE ALREADY WRITTEN.  Piece of cake, despite the tedious process of resizing all the files and assembling them into a powerpoint presentation.

The two-portfolio requirement – one must be a collection of images detailing community work – adds another fun twist.  My current AmeriCorps*VISTA assignment seems to have set me up perfectly for that portfolio, since community work is what I do for 8+ hours per day, every day.

Needless to say, this takes a lot of the worry out of grad school applications.  I can work with a fast turnaround on writing projects, so I have no doubt my essays will take fine shape.  I tend to abandon projects easily, but I have already committed myself by asking for letters of recommendation.  Everything seems to be working out in my favor, I just need to keep the momentum going.