When I was entering my senior year of college, I settled on my dream career field of a pathologists’ assistant. It was niche, and extremely competitive to get into a program. I had a plan as of 2021 to get into a program and begin my graduate schooling. I had to delay this plan by a year when I had to take prerequisites I was not able to take before I completed undergrad. Once I had accepted this, I had my applications all ready to go in 2022 to begin the 2023 semester. This was now 2 years after my initial plan, but I was hopeful. I ended up getting rejected from every school I applied to or interviewed at. I felt behind in my career compared to my peers, and working towards a goal for 2 years made my family just suggest I settle and go into a different field. However, I did not want to give up. I realized being a re-applicant worked in my favor as I could show how much I’ve improved. I asked the programs I applied to how I could improve, and took their advice. While I was less hopeful this second round as I had been rejected just a year before, I continued on with my pursuits. The program I had re-applied to was so impressed with my improvement over the year they accepted me into the incoming class of 2024 that same day as my interview. Although it took me about 3 years to achieve this goal, I finally achieved it. I applied this lesson to other aspects in my life. While I may be delayed in getting something I want while it seems that others around me achieve their goals, I realized everything would happen when the time is right. It doesn’t matter how slowly it might happen. Everyone grows and develops at their own pace, and while I had often heard that as a consolation when I didn’t reach expectations by the time I had planned to, it really resonated when I had finally achieved what I had been focusing on for so long. Just because something that you want hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean that your time won’t come. Be patient, work at your goals, and when the time is right everything really will fall into place. I am proof of this platitude.

You sit on the couch with a lamp on
Writing a poem
Bananas on the coffee table
Are ripening.

You’re creative
Unique
Expressing yourself authentically
Resolute
You observe carefully
Sensing the world around you
You contain depth and wisdom
A counter to a mainstream thought process
Seeing details and complexities
You feel everything deeply
You write to make sense
Of the world around you
The bananas are ripe.

You feel inadequate
You harden your shell
The bananas are overripe.
You stop writing poetry
The bananas rot.
Fruit flies swarm
And colonize
How you feel about who you’ve become
In comparison to who you were

But then an opportunity appears
To revisit the past
When the bananas were beginning to ripen
To write a poem
To your inner child
Where you’re reminded of the little girl
Who was unique
Creative
Resolute
Who wrote to make sense of her world
And remember
That the inner child hasn’t been lost
These qualities still exist within her

A vinegar and dish soap trap
The fruit flies give out
Creativity
Uniqueness
Determination
Are coaxed out
And she is once again writing a poem