Hurdle

So I wrote to the dean of the MXAT school in Moscow to make certain I'm still on track to join them in August. He wrote me back with a polite "Who are you again?"

Reminding him wasn't difficult, but he faced me with a new hurdle. There's a new master instructor, which is to say one who doesn't know who I am. In short, I have to fly to Cambridge MA this July to audition for him (any Stanislavskians up for a reunion?)

It was frustrating, because it says to me I no longer have a guaranteed shot at this school, as I have believed for the last year and change. Indeed, I won't know before July if I'm even actually going at all, and then, if I'm accepted, I leave for points East a month later. And there's still the selling of my things and loans to be obtained during that month.

At first, MXAT was chasing me. As time has passed, it became more a case of me not only chasing them, but having to remind them who I am each time I catch up.

When I got the news, I panicked a little, and considered my options as I will should I not pass the audition, or discover that I can't get the money together. I have Heather in my life now, who happens to be also leaving Dallas in August. She's going to Chicago, a city I fell in love with from the first time I visited there--a place I have wanted to end up since I was 17.

Going to Chicago wouldn't be a bad idea--not one iota--even if Heather weren't in the picture. But after much soul-searching and important conversations, I decided NOT to give up on Moscow just because the road got difficult. If I'm not going, it won't be because of my own decisions. It will be because it's not possible.

And if it's not possible, I have no problem starting my career in the city I love with the woman I love. And I'll get to keep all of my stuff. Well, most of it. Probably.