Somewhere Down There is My Transcript

I filled out the application for the Gerontology program. Wrote my ‘essay,’ yes, I wrote an actual essay describing myself, my motivation, experience, and academic history. And then I hit the submit button.

But no dice. The application requires a copy of my transcript. Right away, I figure that someone at my alma mater will have to strap on a headlamp and trudge down two flights of stairs to the basement below the basement to the set of file cabinets way back against the wall holding the signed photos of Ike’s speech warning of the military-industrial complex.

This is when I learned that there is a company called Parchment that will send me my college transcript if I fill out a bunch of forms and upload my ID. Which I did and now I’m waiting for the person with the headlamp to excavate my transcript and take a picture of it with his phone.

The requirement for the transcript was my first, “Are you kidding me?” And I almost immediately decided that this entire gambit was more trouble than it was worth.

I clearly need to get over myself.

In other news, I missed a big demo downtown today, missed as in not knowing it was happening. This, after attending Wednesday night’s demo at the ICE headquarters along with a couple of good friends and my son who, some of you may know, is Hispanic. It was a big night for us because he’d overcome a lot of apprehension to go, ended up very much appreciating being with so many people in such solidarity, and was then interviewed by our state’s public radio station as we were leaving. His comments gave me goosebumps. Anyway, I feel crummy missing today, but I’ll be out tomorrow at our regular Saturday sign protest.

It occurs to me writing this that resistance to what is happening in our country takes a lot of forms. Showing up is so important, standing with hundreds of others at demonstrations, waving signs, contacting elected officials, the calls, the letters, being aggressively civically engaged. But another key part of resistance is having hope for the future. This means believing that there are reasons to plan and aspire, trusting that we are not done for, and that there are reasons to flower or seek to flower, in my case.

Let’s hope some courageous soul finds my dusty transcript and I can proceed with seeking to flower.

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Photo by Sidney Pitzl on Unsplash