Sunday, January 9, 2011

In Limbo

Everything was supposed to happen once I finished high school.

I've been in community college and working in minimum wage food service for the past 5 months, still living at home. I don't know what I expected this in-between time to be like, but somehow I am still surprised.


I have always imagined my life in 3 parts: School - In-Between - Dream Fulfillment.

Ever since I was able to conceive that cartoon shows are made by people, I have wanted to make my own. I've been drawing for my entire life and I don't intend to be the person who lets her dreams slip by as life sets in. It is the one constant and the one dream I have always leaned upon. A few years ago I met a wonderful boy who does what I do and dreams what I dream. In some ways this makes it easier. I have a built-in support system and a partner who absolutely understands my passions.

All through high school I dreamed of escaping and "finally starting my life". I waved off the 'in-between time' and skipped right to moving in with my boyfriend and launching into the animation industry together.


The last year has been a minefield of plans that are so up in the air they have no hope of being executed. Senior year forced me to pull together some sort of unmotivated college plan. I can't think of a thing to go to college for. I'm too poor for art school. Hell, I'm too poor for a 4-year university, but at least that is realistic enough for my mother to allow it.


Let's pause and get some basics straight:

  • I'm a cartoonist
  • My long-distance boyfriend is a cartoonist
  • My mother is overbearing



I've always known that college had to fit into my cartoony plans somewhere because that is what my mother expects of me. I never had to confront the puzzle pieces until it was time to apply for college. To be honest, senior year came and went with me not knowing how to drive yet or being employed. Moving anywhere was not an option. And I'm not dumb when it comes to school, but I am lazy. Scholarships of any nature other than financial aid were not popping up in my favor.

Let me try to recall some plans as the year progressed..

I wanted to go to VFS in Canada.

I wanted to go to SVA in New York.

I wanted to go to any college in New York so that I could be with my boyfriend.

I wanted to go to a college near Portland, Oregon because I think it would be neat.

I wanted to convince my boyfriend to get an old hippie van, drive down to Florida to get me, and keep going until we hit California so that we may be free livin' nomads.
"To avoid parking fees, I'll drive while you sleep. We'll never, ever stop!"



Then I really sat down and said to myself "This is not going to be fun. Pick something in-state and cope." Around the same time I was visiting family in Orlando and friends on the campus of UCF. Something about it sparked my interest and my mother was very excited to hear it. We planned on UCF.

My application was deferred in November. Many of my peers' were as well, and some were flat-out rejected. I was hopeful. As the year marched on, people in my boat were rejected in large numbers and accepted in small. I made totally awesome plans to be roomies with my friend Victoria and live on-campus. She was accepted and I checked the UCF website every single day, if only to stop prefacing every conversation with "If I get into UCF and we're roommates..."


They had me waiting from November to April. My status never changed to rejected or accepted. I was deferred for five fucking months while everyone else at least got a goddamned yay or nay. And then one day in April my status had changed to rejected. Just like the wind blowing out a candle I had kept lit for the last five months.


With about a month left in high school, I put my shit in reverse and applied to Valencia Community College and got accepted right away. I planned to move into an apartment with my best friend Autumn, which had actually been our plan since 5th grade. The lining could not have been more silver on this cloud. We talked about how we would decorate and what sort of groceries we would stock the fridge with, and how often we would chill out with some good TV and a bong.


The plan may have been feasible, except you may remember reading earlier on that I did not yet drive or work. I had no money saved up and no car. Somehow though, it was going to work. My plan was way more focused on moving out than it was on college, and my mom intercepted it.


Broken, I realized I was stuck going to the local community college that I had avoided. I could've chosen that back at the start of the school year and not gone through all of these bullshit ups and downs. And she helped me when I was applying to Valencia! "Why did you just let me do all of that if you were just going to say I had to stay home?!" Her response was that she was waiting to see how long it would take me to realize that I had no means to move out and live 3 hours away from home, and she needed to stop me now because she didn't have enough time or money to move me out and back in once I fucked up.


Come July my close friend Amanda took off for Washington, and August saw off Autumn. I cried, hard and alone. I had to work and go to school, but I still had to live at home, and my friends weren't even around to hang out with in the off time. And then I thought...

.. This is the in-between time.


- Erica