559

That's the number of new emails I have, according to my Gmail inbox.

It has been 559 for quite a while. All the emails on the first page are read, and I make a point to either click on or delete new mail that finds is way into my humble chocolate cupcake account. And yet this number keeps growing. I don't understand how this is physically possible if I consciously take care of every new email. It's one of those life's unsolved mysteries, like how even when you completely untangle your iPod headphones and set them down on a table, they will have 23509343 knots when you pick them up five minutes later.

559. That's a lot of words written to me I haven't read. I don't have to click through my archives to know most of them are either from Facebook, a store I signed up at for the 10% discount, or Mr. Molin's eagle updates. A few are actually important, that I mentally check off to read later but (obviously) forget. Like college counseling stuff. It's safe to say I prioritized horribly first semester senior year, hurting not only myself in the present but possibly screwing up my future.

Today I got into New York University. It has been my first choice ever since I learned that the city of New York exists - I dreamt of catching a taxi under the fancy lights of Broadway Carrie-Bradshaw style, and being able to go to school there seemed unreal. Too perfectly amazing. Somehow, I didn't even need to know the criteria to be accepted at the University. No matter what my grades turned out to be, I knew I'd get in. I know what all you psych nerds are going to say - hindsight bias, when I say I knew something would happen after it already occurred. Well, believe it if you want, but NYU was the only school I didn't doubt.

And then something happened. A lot of things happened specifically, but this one somehow snuck right past my conscious and burned itself into my brain before I could realize what was going on. I'm not about to go into the details of how my decisions affected my moral outlook on life and myself, but in a nutshell, I'm not ready. I don't fully trust myself in one of the most exciting lively overflowing-with-opportunities cities in the world. I love New York, but it will have to wait. I'm sure a chance will present itself in the future when I'm more set on what I want in life, and when it does, I'll take it without looking back.

559 meaningless emails taking up space in my memory. I can't even find the time to clean up and get organized electronically, let alone manually or mentally or any other kind of realm of thought. I always keep a Gmail tab open; when that number changes to 560, for the two or three seconds that come between my brain processing this information and my finger moving the cursor to the email tab, I feel important. That's an understatement; I don't feel alone. And then I click the page and read the subject line to find out that Questia is offering another manage-your-stress quiz, and all my feelings of individualism evaporate. Then the number goes back to 559.

And that's good. It's more than halfway there, but it's not quite there yet. Just like my thought process. It's about time one of those things had a constant.