Angel: Well, he said I had to take the plunge.
Darla: Into an empty pool?
Angel: Sure. ‘Cause if you had water, you’d get all wet and miss out on all that skull-crushing.
Darla: Maybe he meant another pool.
Angel: Something in a koi pond. They’re very Zen.
…
Angel (ready to leap into the empty pool): I’m either coming back with a cure, or you’re gonna see something kinda funny.
Getting Arthur into college has been a huge leap of faith. A plunge into an empty pool. The Fool walking off a cliff. Kinda Zen. Kinda terrifying.
I couldn’t do it for myself, when I was eighteen. There was no leap of faith because I knew, I knew, that there was nothing down there but skull-crushing. The school I really wanted was in El Paso, but I couldn’t figure out how I could show up in Texas and live there, having never been anywhere. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t…I really didn’t even know that what I was supposed to do was investigate how to make it happen. I didn’t know I was supposed to ask. (And this was pre-Internet, it was a little harder…a lot harder, to do research.) When I narrowed my search to local schools, the “good” one cost twice as much as the other four I looked at. The recruiter there really wanted me. I said it was too much money, and she said Don’t worry, we’ll get the money. But I didn’t see the money. She didn’t say how. The only way to get the money was to enroll; the money was available to students, not applicants. And that was terrifying. I couldn’t do it.
Not for me, no. But for my son. I can do it for him.
It’s easier. I’m older, I’ve done many scary things. I’m more motivated. I have a little bit of money and a job. And there have been times, in choosing to leap, that I’ve been rank terrified; foul-smelling, gut-clenching, ohmygodswhathaveidone scared. It’s SO. MUCH. MONEY. It’s on-the-face-of-it crazy.
I kept looking around. The people I knew who were putting their kids through school didn’t make more (or much more) than me. Some of them had two or three kids in private colleges. If they were doing it, it must be possible for me to do it. I talked to people. I learned. I learned about grants and scholarships and loans and then, y’know, it would get scary again, and then it would be about the leap. About the cliff. And ultimately, I had to say to myself, Do I walk off a cliff for him?
And I do. I’ve spent almost thirty years jealous of the people who went to college while I lived in partnership with my fear. I won’t do it again. I won’t do it to Arthur.
This will either get him an education or you’re gonna see something kinda funny.