This morning I registered for my last full semester of grad school.

I am in shock, to be honest. I cannot believe that I have already come this far, that I’m not only working on my creative thesis already, but that I’m also looked ahead to the end of my M.F.A. I can’t believe how much I’ve written, how much I’ve grown, how much I’ve learned over the course of this incredible experience. It hasn’t been without its issues and its drama, but it has still wildly exceeded my expectations.

I started this program only a few weeks after I left my ex-husband. I remember the night I left him, I said that I wanted this M.F.A to be the catalyst of my remaking, that I hoped it would shape my future, and that I was glad it was coming so that I could give myself something to do. And looking back at how I felt and who I was in that first semester, I see someone almost completely different than who I am now. I see a woman grieving, a woman broken, a woman lost and hurt and confused and barely keeping herself together.

And this M.F.A. really has been the catalyst of my remaking. Because of this program, I decided to work in poetry as well as prose for my second semester. Because of that choice, I’ve written more poetry this year than I have in the rest of my life combined. Because of that, I changed my track from Prose to Poetry. And because of that, I have been consuming works of poetry and setting new poetic goals for myself and it’s meant that I have so much material to work with!

I haven’t imagined myself as being a poet since I was a kid. Now, I can actually see myself writing, revising, and publishing collections of my poetry. I can see myself continuing to post poems to my Instagram and submitting poems to be published in different literary journals and finding new ways of challenging myself. Last year around this time, I wrote a couple of poems and showed them to a friend. I had no plans to really study poetry at this point. I had been reading some experimental prose for school and it made me wonder what other forms I could explore in my writing. I wasn’t in love with these two poems, but I felt I was onto something.

The friend’s reaction was completely underwhelming and made me feel as though any attempts at poetry was a waste of my time. And it’s not that the poems were great. I knew they weren’t. But when you show something you’ve written to a friend, you expect to be given support and encouragement. I got the opposite and it made me feel horrible. I was hurt. I was disappointed. And I stopped showing this person my writing, even when asked if they could see what I was working on because it was clear to me that I wasn’t going to be given real support or encouragement.

I almost allowed this one experience to dissuade me from pursuing poetry, but instead, I had an honest conversation with myself about what I wanted out of this M.F.A. Did I only want to keep writing prose, or would I regret not studying poetry for at least one semester? Before even beginning the program, I’d asked the director if students who were primarily studying prose would be allowed to also study poetry for a packet or two, and he said yes, that it was really at the discretion of the student and their faculty mentor what they wrote. I knew then that I would absolutely regret it if I didn’t challenge myself and at least write one packet of poetry during this program.

That was why I decided I was going to write 150 poems for the year of 2020. No matter how many poems I wrote in connection with my M.F.A., I was going to give myself the creative space to really explore. And that is exactly what I’ve done. Almost 500 poems later, and I have so many new creative writing goals. And none of it would have happened if I hadn’t given myself the chance and listened to my gut.

Next semester begins with our winter residency. The residencies are exhausting, but I have loved every single one of them. I take copious amounts of notes and reflect back on each lecture, each workshop, each reading throughout the semester for inspiration and encouragement. Last residency was incredible and I am utterly thrilled for this next residency.

I can’t believe I’m almost finished with my M.F.A. I’m both excited and saddened by that statement.