I stopped at home yesterday afternoon for 10 minutes before my grad school interview, just to fill up my water bottle and change my shoes. But I got distracted, because I had two conspicuous pieces of mail waiting for me, one big and fat, one [...]]]> It all comes at once, and it throws me off.

I stopped at home yesterday afternoon for 10 minutes before my grad school interview, just to fill up my water bottle and change my shoes. But I got distracted, because I had two conspicuous pieces of mail waiting for me, one big and fat, one small and thin.

I got rejected by Berkeley. I got into UCLA.

And UCLA offered me money. A lot of money. FREE money.

And then with all of this swirling around in my head — disappointment about Berkeley, relief at getting accepted somewhere, realization that YAY! I CAN LEAVE MY JOB, that all of everything I’ve been thinking about hypothetically is now something that can really happen, and then of course feeling flattered that UCLA wants me so much that they will *pay me* to go there, which is unusual for a master’s program — all of this swirling around in my head, I still had to go to my interview at the remaining grad program here in San Francisco. So off I went, had the interview, and then at the end of the interview the faculty I interviewed with informed me that they were extending me an offer of admission as well.

So. Two offers, one rejection. All in the same day. And my whole world feels thrown off. I get to leave my job and now it feels real — May 14th will be my last day. That’s in two months. Two months left of this and then I move on, my life goes forward and it’s strange, because although for now my life is still exactly the same as it was on Friday, and I’ll have to continue going through the motions for the next few months, it all feels so different.

And, of course, the big question: do I follow the money, move to LA? I don’t know a soul in LA, and to me, the city seems huge and unforgiving. It’s a sprawling car city, very unlike San Francisco, all crammed onto a thumb jutting into the sea. It’s a city of actors and producers and entertainment and swimming pools and palm trees. I would live by myself, probably, and I’d have to get a car and wouldn’t have any friends (but of course I would make friends, I know that, but do I have to start over? again?) and I’d be going to school, sure, but what about everything else? Starting from scratch, in a place I don’t even really want to call home. And mi’lady wouldn’t be there. She’d stay here, in San Francisco. And right after we’ve been talking about living together, to do exactly the opposite, move away, live entirely separately seems so devastating.

San Francisco a city of books and hardwood floors and queers and streetcars and fog and hills and creative activism. San Francisco is my city. It’s my self-made home. And today was gorgeously sunny and warm so that it didn’t even make me half-lust after balmy SoCal. Was the universe trying to tell me to stay? “See? San Francisco can shape up and be perfect, give her a chance, don’t leave!”

I have a few weeks to make this decision, luckily. But it’s not one I’m really looking forward to having to make. I know there’s no wrong choice here, I can’t mess up. But I do so badly want to do what’s right.

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This post, choices and changes, originally appeared on alphafemme on March 7, 2010.