I was sitting on the couch when I received the email that I had been waitlisted for my number one university. It was late evening, the day before the college had to send out admission letters. I felt so nervous opening the email to check that it felt like I was watching myself from a third-person perspective.

The letter was very impersonal but polite, saying that I wasn’t exactly what they had been looking for, reiterating several times how many people had applied. It felt like a bad dream, having my plans uprooted and left up in the air at the whim of a late summer decision that could go either way. I hadn’t been particularly worried leading up to this since it was a state school with an acceptance rate of 80%, but that fact only made the shock and disappointment more pronounced.

In the following days, I fell into depression. I had been accepted into the other schools I had applied to, and there was still a possibility that I would get into my dream school, but it felt like the chess pieces of my future had suddenly been knocked into disarray. Combining that with the fact that it felt like my friends were unconcerned with the prospect of me no longer going to school with them, I fell further into despair.

It took me a few days of catastrophizing to realize why the acceptance mattered so much to me beyond my excitement at the idea of going to school with my friends. In truth, I had slowly become more and more disillusioned with the idea of going to a traditional university, and this was my only remaining hope to feel passionate about my further education.

With this realization, I made the difficult but relieving decision to go to a community college in the fall rather than a traditional university. Going with my instincts rather than forcing myself into the path I considered ‘acceptable’ was a big risk, but it also allowed me to feel excited about what’s coming next for the first time in a while. I’ve picked up the pieces, and I’m ready to put my future into checkmate.