The First Day of the rest of my Life

I turned in my master's thesis on Wednesday. Printed it out, bound it together and mailed it to Scotland. I'm longer a student. Everything I've known for the last twenty years of my life is no more.

It is the most liberating feeling ever.

Despite that I know I'll go back for a doctorate eventually - the most stressful moments of my masters degree are the ones that motivate me towards the PhD - but I can't leave NYC to do it - I feel like a person, in the most complete sense of personhood. If anyone understands that.

I feel free to write whatever I want. I feel some how more... there's not a word for it. I feel like in situations where before I thought I'd be dismissed as a young student trying to find herself, now they might take me serious. Now I'm ready to let them take me seriously. I'm ready to stand up and tell them that I do have something to offer them and that no they will not find a better candidate. I'm the woman for the job. I've seen my friends all around me being real people, being trusted - they've done away with those little girl smiles that get them in doors - now they look that man straight in the face and tell them what's what, without blinking and then they go for it. I'm ready to do that too.

I'm ready to call literary directors and ask if I can take them to lunch and pitch them my play. Ask them what they can do for me, where they think I should point my career's compass. And then I'll do it. Gone are the days when I thought my plays would be swept off their feet and on to Broadway. I'm not usually that naive, but I can dream. Bring on the cold calls and the short lunches. Bring it.

This is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm going grab it and squeeze every piece of it until I have all I want.