Accepted (Part I)

I feel like every new post I write ... "It's been a while" and this one is no different.  I haven't really posted on here in a while, mostly the post I've done lately have just been a copy & pasting of stuff from my facebook page.  But this is a true and true blog post.... lol.  I have so many feelings this year at this moment, in it being Emily's senior year and all.  Went fast... faster than I could have ever imagined.  Yet here it is and she's 18 & about to graduate.  So much is going on... Emily's in her school spring musical again this year,  It's called, "The Drowsy Chaperone" & there's been some drama with it this year. Mostly just differences because they have a new director and it feels different than past years but hopefully, all will be okay when it runs next week.  Each year there is usually a fundraiser & a spaghetti dinner but none of that this year.   Maybe it's because they've always done a Disney production & the play cost more to put on.  Paying Copyright and all, I guess.  What do I know?  This year her senior year I've wanted to just cherish every little moment and I've been working so much, that it's been really hard to do.  I feel a bit stunned it's already March. Like What? How? But... what are you going to do?  It's here.

Anyway... a lot of cool things have happened this year and writing them down on here will remind me perhaps that our family has had a great year thus far.  In October we visited Fairleigh Dickinson University & Em really REALLY liked it there.  It's a small school near NYC.  It has a really great Creative Writing program and that being what Emily wants to do, has always wanted to do, it was one of the first things that attracted her/us to the school.  In fact, it's #1 in our state.  We've visited two other times, one for "Instant Decision" day... she got ACCEPTED & with a $27,000 a year scholarship, a total of $108,000 if she maintains a 3.0 GPA or higher! We are so proud.   The "official" letter came in February.   The 3rd visit was on March 2nd for a Creative writing workshop.  It was like an explore your major day.  So freshmen who already were aware of what they would be majoring in, could meet some of their professors, for Emily's group, they had to bring in an original one-page fiction short story, or poem and share it with others and get feedback from it in a group setting. They shared the stories with each other. Very cool.  Now, all that sounds great,  except the visit on March 2nd seemed so unorganized. The other two visits were good but this one was a tad chaotic.   We actually arrived on time but when we got to the security gate they told us the wrong information as for where it was taking place & then it took like 45 minutes and two other wrong places before she finally got to the right location of the workshop.  So she missed a few people reading their stories/poems. Em has been working on a novel called, "Forget 55" which is about, believe it or not "Birds" in a post-apocalyptic time period, so she shared a page from that.   While she was in the workshop,  we were planning on driving around to see the surrounding areas around the university but because of the delay decided to just wait on the campus. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't just three visits and we were like this is it!  The idea of Emily going to college is terrifying.  Is she ready?  She still has a lot to learn. BUT I imagine in many ways that will be where she'll learn it.  BUT.... we wondered and wondered and wondered what the right thing to do would be.  We knew that Emily was smart enough to attend school but still worried if she was capable of handling the other aspects of being away from home.  With Emily's Autism Spectrum Diagnosis it's a bigger deal for Emily than it might be for another college freshman.   Up until we discovered Fairleigh Dickinson, we really thought that a community college was probably where she would be attending,  but seeing the school and the campus, it really felt "right".  The classes are probably smaller than her HS classes.  The students were so super nice, the staff & everyone.  It became an even clearer choice when she received such a high merit scholarship.  Without it, it would have been out of the financial question,  it's an expensive private college and we wouldn't have wanted to have Emily leave school with that much debt, especially considering she could possibly attend a community college for free under a state scholarship program.  SO... Fairleigh Dickinson became an option to really consider after that.  I have to say this though... we felt like the "poor" people there.  It's a little more affluent of an area than the one we are from, and everyone seemed to look & act the part.  It shouldn't matter but a flaw of mine is that I worry way more than I should about what other's think,... it somehow still felt awkward and uncomfortable for me.  But I'm not going there so it really only matters if Emily felt that way, she seemed not to.  She still loved it just as much! No matter what I'll probably still worry but we did seem to reach a compromise we could live with. Which was? Emily will take a gap year.  We explained to admissions how we weren't sure Emily was quite ready for college, we thought as a family it would be best for her to take a gap year off. SO she won't be attending school until September 2020.  We will do our very best in that year to get her more ready to attend.  More responsibility, more experiences, and just more time was needed for Emily & us too to feel ready for this.  I honestly believe this is for the best and since they have agreed that the gap year will not affect her scholarship, we are, albeit still apprehensive, at least way more comfortable with the decision, much more than having her attend right out of high school...