The Woman Who Was Supposed To Do This Doesn’t Exist Anymore
On ambition, identity, and the strange weight of finishing something for the person you used to be.
In five weeks I'll be on the other side of the world doing something I no longer really want to do. Something I once dreamed of. Now, it feels like a chore. That's not depression talking, or burnout. It's just that the girl who wanted this stopped existing a long time ago, and I'm the one who has to go in her place. Somewhere between my early 20s and now, the girl who wanted this fellowship just quietly stopped being me. I'm not sure exactly when it happened. I just know she's gone, and in five weeks, I'm the one getting on the plane anyway.
Everyone around me keeps asking if I'm excited. They tell me how excited they are for me, what an incredible experience this is going to be. And I smile and say something about being stressed, about how much there is still to do before I leave, which is all true. But that's not why I go quiet when they ask.
The thing is, I’m not the girl who’s supposed to do this, at least I’m not anymore. I was at one point, this fellowship with all its prestige was always the plan. The girl who put this fellowship on her path was maybe 22, back then I didn’t know when I would do it but I knew I would. I was driven, certain, the kind of person who believed I was going to be a force in my field and had no reason to doubt it. I did the internship that everyone knew pretty much fed into the program. I had a plan and I was going to make it happen no matter what. And then the pandemic shut the whole program down, and by the time it reopened, that girl was gone. Somehow replaced by a new life where I found community, stability, a life that actually fit. I had a job I liked, a city that felt like home, there was no reason to upend all of that for a fellowship that would send me away from everything I'd built. The person I became no longer wanted this, this thing I used to be so sure was gonna be an important marker on my path. Or maybe I did still want it, but it just wasn't worth it anymore…I'm still not really sure. But the drive was gone. And honestly, I didn't miss it.
I mostly stopped thinking about the fellowship. Occasionally an email or social media post would find me during application season and I'd be reminded it existed. A few times I even thought about applying, but I never did. I told myself I was settled, I liked my life, I didn't need this anymore. That there was always next year. Except there wasn't, because the fellowship has an age limit and I was just about to hit it. This was the last year I could apply. And my job was falling apart from lack of funding, so I knew my days there were numbered. Even with all that, I wasn't thinking about the fellowship until one day, while looking for jobs, I found it again. Two days before the deadline no less. Even then I questioned whether I should apply, but with everything collapsing at once, it felt insane not to at least try. So I did. Not because I'd rediscovered my purpose or felt the pull of who I used to be. I applied because not applying meant letting the window close, and a part of me couldn't do that, not without at least trying.
So I panic-wrote the application that I truly believed was going to lead nowhere but it did, and I got an interview…which I totally bombed. Or at least thought I did, so much so that I told everyone around me I definitely wasn't getting in. But then on a random Wednesday the email came through, and I was somehow accepted. I was going. I think on some level I assumed at every step I wouldn’t move forward because part of me didn't want to. Part of me wanted to be able to say I tried, I really tried, I applied, I interviewed, and they just didn't want me. Honestly, I was relieved by that thought. I think I wanted the decision to be made for me. For someone to tell me this wasn't my story anymore, this wasn't my path. That it was a finished chapter that I had tried to reopen but wasn’t meant for the person I am now. Rejection would have meant it was over, that this was never going to be part of my life, but that I could at least live with knowing I tried. It would’ve been a clean ending. But that didn't happen. I got in, and I accepted the placement.
It's been a haze since I accepted — visa forms, health checks, passport photos, putting in notice on my apartment, selling and packing up the last four years of my life, telling friends, saying my goodbyes. I've been doing all the things I have to do, even though none of it feels real yet. Logically I know what's coming: a new job, a new city, new friends, eight months of starting over. But somehow it still hasn't hit me. Like it's happening to someone else and I'm just the one filling out the paperwork.
So now I have people asking me if I'm excited and me staring at them like they're crazy. The thing is, this isn't something I want badly, there's no drive for it, no pull. It's more that I know, somewhere deep down, that it's something I have to do. Maybe for the girl I used to be, maybe for who I am now — I'm not really sure. Maybe I can just say it's for both of us. Maybe we both need to know what comes from this, who we will be on the other side. The girl I used to be started something and I'm going to finish it for both of us. And don't get me wrong I don’t think it will bring her back, nor do I even want her back. I don’t think this will fundamentally change my life, though maybe that's needed. But I know at my core that if I'd said no and let that window close, I would never have stopped wondering.
So I'm not going because I want what she wanted. I'm going because not going would mean leaving something open forever, dog-eared at the same page for the rest of my life. There’s a part of me that has to find out what's in this chapter and close the book for the girl I was. That's not the same as wanting it, but it's the reality of it. I used to want this cleanly, completely, the way you want things before life teaches you to hedge, or slows you with age, or just changes who you are. I might not have that anymore, but what I do have is the knowledge that I can't leave this unfinished. That whoever I am now, whoever I became in the years between, she started something and it's mine to finish.
And I think that might be enough. Maybe I don't need to want this cleanly to show up for it. The girl I was would've gone for completely different reasons — out of ambition, out of certainty, out of some untested confidence that believed anything was possible. I'm going because some part of me still needs to know what's on the other side of this.
This fellowship has made me spend a lot of time thinking about who I used to be and what she wanted, but I'm starting to think the more interesting question might be who I'll be when I come back. In the end I don't know if any of this will mean what I think it will. I don't know if closing this chapter will feel like anything at all, or if I'll get off the plane and realize I came all this way for something that stopped mattering years ago. I'm not going with her certainty, and I don't have my own to replace it. I just know I couldn't leave this unfinished so in five weeks I'll get on the plane not for ambition, not for closure, maybe not even for her. Just because I couldn't not go.