The List

As most everyone knows that is reading this blog, I have been crossing my fingers (6 months, actually) in hopes of getting into one of two MBA programs of my dreams. It has been a dream something like seven years in the making so I was ecstatic and determidly hopeful when I was put on the waitlist at one of the schools, The University of Chicago. Little did I know back in October when I submitted my application, what the world was in for. I don't think the Univ of Chicago did either.

As the months ticked by and I remained on the waiting list, it became clearer and clearer that maybe now was not the time for my husband and I to pick up and move to Chicago. It felt a little like metaphorically running into a house on fire. Brave, but dangerous and even a little stupid. So, when I found out a week or so ago that there just wasn't going to be room for me in this year's class, we popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and both breathed a sigh of relief. In the next moment, my mind starting flooding with the "If We Stay" list.

At the top of the list was a long trip diving somewhere that I could swim with dolphins in the wild. See my Australia post. Then comes a wide variety of things ranging from a new sunroom table and chairs to a bookcase, a new (new to me) Oma bike (Google it...it's called a grandma bike), and even some books, shoes and clothes I'd put off purchasing. As my husband and I lay on the couch watching a movie several months back, for instance, I comment on how it would be nicer to have a longer and deeper couch to which he responds, "If we stay, we can get a new couch".

And so the list comes flooding back to me at a speed that stuns my husband. He was just starting to like the idea of things not changing. Come to find out he has a list, somewhat shorter, of his own.