In an instant, everything can change.
April 11 started out just like any other Monday. I had my 8 a.m. job hunting class, followed by my Monday morning Tehama Group staff meeting. I had nothing in particular to look forward to as I headed to the Study Abroad Office to work my usual 10-5 shift.
I breezed into the office, sat and talked with Jenn for a few minutes, then headed to my desk. Shelby was sitting in the back, which is unusual this semester, and so we chatted about the weekend, this coming week, and as always, graduation and life after school.
I got up to go to the kitchen to make oatmeal, and glanced at my phone as I came back to my desk. In the minute and a half I had been cutting my apple, soaking my oats and popping a bowl in to the microwave, everything had changed.
I had a missed call and voicemail from a 916 area code.
Sacramento.
I picked up my phone, and my heart started beating a little faster. I looked at Shelby and breathless said, “I have a missed call and voicemail from a 916 number. What if it’s Fleishman?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” she confidently replied.
I held my breath the entire time I listened to the voicemail. It was like in high school when Ms. Jackson announced the cheerleading squad. I’m surprised I didn’t faint; both then, and now.
The call was from the intern coordinator at Fleishman-Hillard, and she wanted to talk about the internship. Fear and doubt gripped me as I considered the possibilities.
Was it so close she was calling everyone, regardless of whether they got the internship or not?
...was she calling to offer it to me? Did I dare let that thought enter my mind?
“It’s them,” I said.
“What are you waiting for?! See what they want.”
I headed out to the hallway on the fourth floor of the Student Services Center. This sacred, carpeted, hallway is a place I’ve paced many times, staring out the glass windows at the quad below, watching the students pass in and out.
I hit the call button, and waited as the phone began to ring.
As I listened to the first ring, my mind began to wander to how I got to this point.
Oddly enough, I didn’t picture my successes.
No where in my vision was the day in senior English I found out I got into BYUI, or the night in Rexburg my dad called to say I got a letter from Chico State, and it was the big envelope.
My mind did not replay the warm spring day I was accepted to the IP program in Aix-en-Provence, or the birthday in Paris when I got an email from the study abroad coordinator writing to invite me to work in the office.
The phone rang a second time.
I flashed back, instead, to my senior year of high school when I got rejected from BYU, and then two years later, wait-listed for their study abroad program in Paris.
The pain of getting cut from the cheerleading squad sophomore year flowed freely. I even went as far back in my pensive as sixth grade, when I got cut from the basketball team.
All of these setbacks devastated me equally.
At the time, they seemed like the end of the world. I will never forget the way my heart sunk and tears stung each time my name was not called, or I got the small envelope saying, “close, but no cigar.”
“Good morning, Fleishman-Hillard,” the receptionist answered.
What I didn’t realize then, but came to realize as I waited to be connected to the intern coordinator, was that each of these failures opened the door for me to pick something else.
My rejections weren’t so much failures as opportunities to find something better, something more me. I am learning that it's not really about what you want, it's about the plan for you.
As it turns out, all the other things I was forced to choose led me to this very moment: 23 years old, standing on the fourth floor of the Student Services Center, pink iPhone in hand, holding my breath.
