disbelief: Harvard bound!

The Jinx

“You’re going to Harvard one day, Jessica.”

I’m in the eighth grade, and it’s the last day of earth science lab. We refuse to say so then, but it’s also goodbye for our friendship, one between two rather radically different young girls. Having known each other for only the length of that school year, *Nora was moving yet again.

“Don’t jinx me,” I reply, knocking on the nearest leg of the lab table. Indeed, four years would pass, and high school would find us down entirely separate paths. Some things, however, stay constant.

For someone who is firmly nonreligious, I’ve always been extremely adamant about superstition. Nora was probably the first to mention Harvard as a potential reality for me when I first started becoming somewhat college-conscious.

Since then, I’ve had countless uncomfortable conversations with people asking, “So, where do you want to go to college?” I’ve perfected the same awkward, forced laugh when people say, as if they could just be so certain, “Harvard, right?” and the even more awkward laugh when you actually do reluctantly admit you might want to go to Harvard and are met with the thinly-veiled look of pity and incredulousness, saying “Well, good luck with that.”

In every one of those encounters, my hand has itched to knock on wood. I guess we’ll never know if it was really all that knocking that’s paid off.

The Best Part

It’s a mix of the best feelings in the world— knocking on your best friend’s door and then screaming together for a minute straight, or sobbing happy tears with your mother as you embrace each other— that comes with those simple words on a digital screen: “Congratulations! We are delighted to inform you…”

It’s pride, it’s relief, it’s joy, it’s flying over the moon and feeling like you never have to land.

But the best part— the very best part— of that whole first Thursday night of utter disbelief and elation was in the later hours, when my parents began to relay the good news to extended family back in China, giving me a chance to actually absorb the implications of the momentous thing that had just happened.

In China, the name “Harvard” is perhaps even more impressive than it is in America. Harvard is synonymous with the greatest of all education— the greatest of American dreams.

Within two generations, my family has undergone an absolute transformation. My father’s parents were illiterate, working to support their four children with the frugal means of a small family farm in rural China. They sold their pigs to pay for my father’s education, getting by year by year. Decades ago, they couldn’t have even imagined that their son would be able to leave their tiny village and study somewhere as grand as America. That was already an American dream come true. Now their grandchild is living the cream of the crop of American dreams.

Even my distant relatives who know next to nothing about the realities of life in America know the name “Harvard.” For my parents and myself to be able to share the happiness and pride with our family has been one of those precious things that has reaffirmed the worthiness of sacrificing their old lives to start new ones.

When I tell you that the flood of pride and gratitude I felt for being the vessel of upwards mobility for my family by way of this symbolic Harvard acceptance was the best of the best feelings in the world, I mean it. I am humbled and honored.

The Dream Come True

Don’t get me wrong; it’s an accomplishment I’m relishing for purely myself too. It’s a big deal for me. I’ve hardly dared to dream I could end up here. Though nearly two weeks have passed, I still wake up, remember, and can hardly believe it! I’ve spent a long time being a little bit afraid to believe in myself, and it’s probably something I will continue to struggle with. I’m thankful I’ve had other people there for me, always believing in me.

The Thank You

I think about this often: there are over seven billion people in this world, and by a combination of over seven billion different strokes of fate, I’ve somehow ended up living the very life I’m living. The town I’ve grown up in, the friends I’ve made, the teachers I’ve had, every single person in my family and community— everything down to the year I was born in and the particular combination of genes and gene expression I was blessed with. There isn’t a single circumstance that can be brushed over; each has been responsible for shaping me into who I am, whether positively or negatively, infinitesimally or monumentally. I am not saying that I have the best of seven billion lives, but I am saying that I wouldn’t have it any other way.

At the end of the day, I can still barely wrap my head around how incredibly lucky I am to say that I get to spend the next four years of my life at one of the best schools in the world. My gosh, it’s Harvard!

But it is really so much more than that. I know I'll look back one day and remember this initial stage of euphoria as one those high points in life, where I can say it's been overwhelmingly one thing: happiness. My acceptance has been a crucial moment to take a pause on life, and really, truly appreciate all of the wonderful people and things that make it what it is.

If you are reading this, there’s a pretty darn good chance that you’ve made some sort of impact on my life, whether either of us are even fully aware of it. Thank you for that.

I don’t how to properly express my gratitude, for it is so much greater than any string of words I can think of. I am unbelievably thankful to live a life where I can be excited about going off to college and see real fruits from my dreams. I am so grateful to be in this moment, right here, right now, reveling in joy over something as simple as seeing the color crimson.

*Name has been changed to protect privacy.