Three things happened last Friday: I got rejected from my top-choice summer internship, I watched “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and I found my senior pictures. Trust me, these will connect.
Let’s start with the senior photos.Even though I look largely the same now as I did in the summer of 2015 , I can assure you that the person in those images is unrecognizable from the one sharing this editorial.
A lot of unpredictable things can happen in a short amount of time. It’s easy to trace the events that led to your current situation, but looking back, the you that existed at any given moment had no idea what was coming next.
If you had told 17-year-old me that in three years time she would be an All-American collegiate athlete, an editor of a newspaper, singing in a choir again, studying English and communications and living with people she can comfortably call her best friends, she would never have believed you.
Add the fact that she goes to school in Indiana and she would have laughed in your face. Or more accurately, awkwardly chuckled and brushed the comment aside, because that girl was painfully terrible at social interactions.
The girl in my senior photos didn’t feel a true sense of belonging in many of her friendships, mostly did sports because her parents expected her to and didn’t have a clue what she wanted to study or where (but definitely in New England).
All that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Now let’s talk about my recent rejection letter.
I’m not going to lie, I was upset. I thought I had a pretty good shot at landing the position, but alas, I received not even an interview.
After reluctantly accepting this fact, my immediate reaction was panic. What I would I do now that my plan had fallen through? Where would I go for the summer? Was I ever going to find an internship relevant to my desired career?
That’s where Kimmy Schmidt comes into play.
In season four, episode nine, Kimmy is asked if she ever wonders how her life might have been had she never been kidnapped. She said, “There’s no point. I’ve been through a lot of terrible stuff that I wish had never happened, but I still have to believe that this is where I’m meant to be. Because if I didn’t, I’d go crazy.”
Things happen for a reason and there’s no point in wondering what could have been.
Just like 17-year-old me had no idea where events of her senior year would take her, 20-year-old me has no idea what opportunities arise because of this internship rejection.
Maybe this is an editorial about destiny. Or about God’s plan. Or about how no matter how hard we try, we can’t predict the future.
Or maybe this editorial is a note to self. A reminder that it’s ok to not be entirely sure what the next step is. Chances are, looking back in retrospect, everything will eventually make sense.