saramsarang

Someone I know was offered a place last year. Iowa emailed them to arrange a Zoom call. 
 
Also, just received an interview invitation from Notre Dame🥲 

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Ahh seriously all of you guys are the sweetest! I'm really introverted and tend to not say much, but being here on gradcafe through the cycle and seeing everyone hit highs and lows and share both the sadness and the joy really was the best part of the whole process for me. Where I'm from, it's been difficult to find a writing community (one of the reasons I applied to the mfa as well) so being on here, gave me a little bit of how it could be and I'm really grateful to all of you guys for that. Looking at everyone here is why I'm not jealous or envious of those who got in, because I can tell how amazing all of you are.
I'd totally be down for workshop writing as well and seconded on keeping contact no matter how it all turns out. I remember in one year, maybe last year? (I've lurked too much on here that all the years are a blur now) but someone (MPD? Their username began with a M I think) did have a workshop with others on gradcafe and apparently their feedback was super useful to others. I remember checking out their profile but I think they haven't been active in a long time. Not all heroes wear capes I guess, but it sounded really fun! So I'm in ~

@TheGreatLoudini and @GoldenTreeThank you both so much for your concern and support, it moved me that you guys checked up on me! I'm doing mostly okay now, definitely better than before anyhow, and I will definitely reach out to you guys if I feel like talking. But otherwise, I'm cheering both of you on for this cycle! 

@TheGreatLoudini and @GoldenTreeThank you both so much for your concern and support, it moved me that you guys checked up on me! I'm doing mostly okay now, definitely better than before anyhow, and I will definitely reach out to you guys if I feel like talking. But otherwise, I'm cheering both of you on for this cycle! 

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Ditto. And @saramsarang you have all the right to be sad about this. That's something my boyfriend told me last night as I was so upset about all this MFA stuff, but it's true. It hurts for the hopes to die and for us to want and fight for something, not yet receiving it. There's always still hope though and I know as writers we so crave external validation sometimes. For someone to say, "yes, I want the work. I love it." We don't always receive that though and then there are these periods where we have to believe in ourselves or else I think we'd all give up. I'm glad you got the sign. Because I believe in you and I've had my own experiences with signs that have greatly helped me. If you ever want a friend I know @TheGreatLoudini offered, but I'd be open too. Whether you'd wanna talk about MFAs, writing, sadness, signs, or whatever, it'd be good with me. If not anything that's alright too. Regardless, I still hope you get in one of those remaining three even though I know you seem to have given up a lot of hope. Keep on believing and I hope you try again eventually or just starting publishing if this current cycle doesn't work out. Either way you wrote an inspiring post that uplifted others and have been a wonderful person to have on this forum. 

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

So this is the first time I have checked this message bored. And a post like this concerns me. if you need someone to talk to reach out to me I don't know if it's by private message or whatever. Stranger on the internet you have tremendous value. Don't ever forget that! 

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

Hello everyone, looks like a slow day indeed, so I just wanted to share some hope/positivity?
I haven't been doing so well mentally for the last one month. The rejections were a lot more hurtful than I thought it would be despite me expecting them and I haven't written a single word since I submitted applications in December. All in all I sort of gave up on writing altogether. I don't know how to explain it except that it died in me. I began to think I was meant to be a writer or write in this lifetime anyways. It might sound dramatic to a lot of you, but it didn't have much to do with the mfa itself. I've endured a lot in the past seven years just to keep writing in my life. Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, and it's hard to explain that to anyone without sounding crazy. It's been incredibly exhausting with no reward or relief and this was all the love I had for the art, so I was going to let it go after this cycle, because there was no light at the end of the tunnel that I could see. 
Yesterday I went to church for the first time in a very long time. I'm not religious, but I am agnostic. (This is not a God is great and you should go pray post, please bear with me). Honestly, I only went to ask a higher power whether they knew what they were doing and why they were doing this to me. I didn't go to ask for anything, not to ask for an acceptance or anything of that sort because I didn't think it worked like that. Also because I've just been very numb and distant from life, so I couldn't even bring myself to ask for it because I genuinely believed I was just destined to fail at writing. 
I ended up crying a lot, a full blown sob session haha. In the end I asked only for one thing, for God to show me a sign if they believed I should continue writing. Any sign, could have even just been a friend texting me to say they loved my writing etc. I would have taken anything just to feel like I hadn't wasted my whole life away. An hour later on the way home I received an acceptance from Binghamton for their English and Creative Writing program. 
Ultimately, I don't think I'll be going there because there's no funding and the director of the program understood my financial difficulties as an international student especially. But she wrote this: "In accepting your application, we wanted to communicate that the creative writing faculty who read your file and your work found it excellent." and encouraged me to keep writing and wished me success. I feel like that was the sign.
The point of this wasn't to ask you guys to believe in a God or a religion or anything, but to say that I didn't have any hope for after the cycle. I was struggling to even imagine a life, but I'm a lot more calmer now. This is the first morning in the last month that I have woken up without crying. I figured if I've survived seven years and that got me the chance to apply for the MFA, another year of fighting for writing won't hurt. Someone out there did like my writing even if it wasn't the mfa. That's pretty good to me. So I'm going to try harder now.
So if anyone else is feeling lost, angry, sad, like you wasted all that money for the applications, just hang in there a bit longer. Writing loves you as much as you love it, it's not unrequited. It's all about the timing, a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. If it's not this cycle and you feel like you won't be able to apply again, that's okay. It's the same for me, I don't think I have the money to apply again next cycle. But we'll never know what will actually happen in a year, in two years, in three. It may seem like there are no possibilities but we're living in a chaotic world where anything can happen. So many people have pointed out how much they've grown through the application cycle and even the short few months after it. Life is like that, you have to keep walking and then suddenly you'll look back and realise how far you've come. Everyone's pace is different, life isn't about speed but rather direction. So grieve, process, but don't give up on writing. It's just not your time yet, but it will come. If not for anyone, you owe it to yourself.
Until then, watch the sunset, meet new people, buy yourself something nice and breathe in the small things. If you've been waiting for a sign, take this as the one. You are enough and there is a life, it may not look okay now but you'll figure it out, you have before, so you will again. It's not the end of the world, it may in fact be the beginning of a new one. 
(That said, I will still cry when I get my rejections from Iowa, Brown and NYU but it's really not the end of the world. I don't regret applying to the mfa even though all I got were rejections. I needed to see through the seven year period until the end, so I'm going to take this as the closure to that really long and hard period. Most of all though, I got to meet all of you guys and I got to see a whole community of writers, it's been very heartwarming. You guys are amazing people and I really hope for nothing but the best for everyone. I hope you keep dreaming, and your life blooms.)
That was a really long message, sorry everyone!

I keep thinking about how much time I spend refreshing this forum, Draft, my email, and the Results page. I don't even consciously do it at this point. It's muscle memory. I wonder how much time I'll free up once this is all over.
 

Ahh thank you so much, this is really helpful!!

Omg congrats to those newly waitlisted and accepted to programs! Unfortunately I’ve been vigilant about checking my spam folder too, haha. At this point I’ve taken to just assuming that I probably won’t get into a program and setting myself up for pleasant surprise or  expected disappointment, which has been working better for me. I barely felt the Michigan rejection (though this is partly down to how nice the email was, lol).

OMG GUYS. I just saw a missed call from 212. NYU called w full funding!! This may be the most exciting week of my life.

I wouldn't have made it through the last few weeks without gradcafé and you guys! I'm hopeful for our results but I, too, want to reapply if I don't make it this year, and I'd be happy to do it all over again but this time knowing I have a community on my side!
I also wrote a whole poem for the first time since submitting my apps yesterday (kind of embarrassing, tbh, but it's part of being a writer sometimes) and I'm so glad you guys are writing too and not letting rejection discourage you. I'm really impressed and thankful at how kind and positive this forum has been!

I'm out of reactions, but congratulations to all of you with good news to share!!!!! I'm so happy for you all!! And I hope some of those w's turn into a's for everyone:) 
Everyone struggling with uncertainty--I wish I had something worthwhile to say. I'm holding out hope that you all hear good news soon. This process is difficult--both on our wallets and our psyches. Many of us spent hundreds on application fees alone. Everyone here seems so kind and talented; I'm hoping we all get into programs this cycle, if only to spare us from doing this process again in the future.  
Since learning there's a possibility my 'a' program might be cancelled, I've been thinking a lot about how to cope if I have to go through a cycle again next year (and maybe the year after that... And after that...)... Upon research, it seems like a lot of excellent writers--many of whom are authors/professors/etc--were rejected across the board the first time around. It's just that so much about the recruitment process is up purely to chance. I have no doubt that every person here would thrive in an MFA program. 
I keep telling myself that, if I do have to go another cycle, I'll be coming out of this with experience, drive, and connections. I now know about new programs to apply for. I now know not to accidentally apply for unfunded programs. I now know talented, skilled, kind people like you all who I could probably bug to read over my SOP and sample. I've got a plan lined out to submit more, write more, etc.
I'm really, really hoping none of us have to go through this process again--because clearly, it is rough--but I think that, if we have to, we'll all be in a really good spot. 
I'm really hoping the best for everyone.