What Timing.

I just watched one of my favorite movies, one I am usually embarrassed to admit liking: Where the Heart Is. It’s something I would usually scoff at- you know, tear-jerking, heart-warming romance. It’s what you might call a chick flick- and I don’t go for those.

This one, though, somehow I just love, and tonight, after watching it, I felt that it arrived from netflix at a rather appropriate time.

I don’t think I’m going to get into grad school.

The deadline for the major application is the 1st. I haven’t finished filling it out yet, because I need some information from my undergrad university. I’ve had a month to get it. Every day I sleep late, then pass away the early afternoon doing nothing. Some days I remember, when it’s far too late to call an office back east, that I needed to do so. I resolve that the next day it will happen- and then repeat the pattern. By now, I have one last chance- get the information (which I’m not even entirely sure I can get) on the 30th or accept that I’ve gone and fucked it up. And I haven’t even written my essays and things, which are due in two weeks. I’ve merely over-thought them until I find everything I have to say worthy of rejection.

Also, I just got my official GRE scores in the mail today, and never before have I felt so fucking mediocre. Let me repeat: mediocre. I don’t feel smart. I don’t feel overly talented. I feel like my impression of myself as an intelligent person, capable and worthy of getting into this school, has perhaps been… off-target. Like when your mother tells you something you’ve cooked is the best thing she’s ever tasted, so with a big head you serve it to others, and find out that it’s really not impressive at all- I feel like that, only I, and my intelligence, my capability, my worth, are the dish.

This really doesn’t feel good.

But! This is an entry about why that sappy film felt appropriate tonight.

Tom hasn’t left my life, but refuses to actually be in it. Every time I think he’s gone, he goes and does something like ‘liking’ a photo of me smiling on fbook. Small, nothing things, but enough to remind me he exists. I’ve realized that- that I don’t feel like I’m good enough for him. I was dating this guy recently whom I found to be undereducated, and felt better than him for it. Tom is far better educated than I. Thus I feel – yes, like I’m not good enough for him. Especially today, when I see my stupidly mediocre scores and wonder if I’ll even pull off an application the day before it’s deadline or not- he’s getting his PHD at this school, and I don’t think I’ll even be able to get into one of the smaller, uncompetitive programs. So I don’t think I’m good enough for the type of person I want to be with. In gist.

The protagonist of this film is a young single mother living through her hardships with the help and love of friends she makes along the way. There is, of course, a romance. The man of the romance is well educated, and, she thinks, too good for her. Or rather, she thinks that she isn’t good enough for him. So (hey spoilers!) she sends him off with a lie that she doesn’t love him.

But then! She realizes that she really does, and drives to his fancy university to tell him: she lied. She lied because she doesn’t think she is good enough for him. And he tells her- get this- there is nothing better than her. They kiss, cut to the wedding, cut to credits.

So as I’m feeling really shitty about myself, like I’m not worth the things I want in life, here comes this film in which a girl who feels similarly is told that she is full of worth. I can’t quite make the leap to applying her lesson to myself- afterall, life ain’t the movies, even the tear-jerkers- but it’s still a timely thing.