State Your Purpose

Its labor day already? Where did summer go? Where did 2011 go?

My facebook newsfeed is filled with "back to school" statuses: "back on campus!", "moving in!","senior year!", "first night back!" & while there is part of me that is glad to be past that point in my life, there is still that other part of me that wishes I was stocking up on 5 subject notebooks, mechanical pencils, multicolored post its & highlighters [school supply shopping was always my favorite].

There came a point in my senior year when I had to decide whether I was going to start that dreaded graduate school application process or take the easy way out (turns out the easy way? not so easy at all). After 17 years of school in a row I decided I needed a little time off [I was also under the impression that, degree in hand, I would be able to find a Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, weekends & holidays off dream job with the greatest of ease].

So I gave myself 1 year - I figured that was pretty standard. This year off would give me time to figure things out ya know? to relax, to job hunt, to apartment hunt, and to give the necessary time and energy to applying to grad school.

So here I am its been over a year now & I'm not going back to school this fall. I missed all the deadlines I needed to make in order to be starting a MFA program this fall & I really have no one else to blame...so what do I do? The only thing I can do is start now, but that is already proving to be a little difficult for me.

There are 3 schools on my list [more about those schools to come] & they each ask for the same things:
recommendations, transcripts, resume/cv, literary analysis
and then they ask for a "personal statement" [UGH]
500+ words of me talking about myself? theres too much room for that to end up resembling some kind of self deprecating blog post
and as if thats not bad enough
one application actually asks me for a STATEMENT OF PURPOSE. how dare they?! I don't know what my purpose is! Trust me things would be a lot easier if i did & I mean if I'm applying to your program my purpose is to obviously attend your program...DUH?

But in all seriousness...I don't know what my purpose is. Its something I struggle with everyday. What am I doing here? What do I want to do? What is my plan? and ultimately What is my purpose? Not only in applying to a MFA program, attending that MFA, [hopefully surviving it and] receiving that MFA, but also what am I going to do with that MFA?
What am I going to do with my life?
Its a question I've been avoiding for some time now, and I'm not feeling all that great about being somewhat forced to face it, but I mean now a days if I'm not forced to do something I won't do it at all.
Maybe its time I stop running away from this? Maybe its time I face this head on?

Maybe its time I state my purpose?