As you, my dear ones of readers, know, I have a teenage daughter. We reached a new milestone this summer as we piled in the car to visit her top five colleges. My husband and I gave her advice on things to consider like the size of the student body, the community the school is located in, living on campus versus commuting and so on. She put a name to what she wanted to study, sociology, and we researched the best schools for it that met her other wants. The list narrowed further and she decided on the top two choices and applied.

Needless to say, things have been a little tense as we wait for the mail each day.

She got a big envelope in the mail from her second choice a couple of weeks ago.She also received $11,500 in merit scholarship, which is really awesome considering it’s a private school and more expensive. She was so excited that she was accepted – she jumped up and down, she screamed, it was indescribable to watch.

Last weekend we took her back to her first choice for an interview, and then for an over night visit. We should know something in the next few days. We checked her admission portal page and there was a link to fill out the form saying she’ll be attending and to pay the non-refundable deposit. We’re kind of figuring they don’t usually put the link on the page for people they’re not accepting, but until we get that big envelope we’re being cautiously optimistic.

It’s nice to be on pins and needles for a good reason. In the last few months we’ve been anxious for a lot of reasons, and few of them could be considered good. My husband eventually got his long-term disability, and my unemployment resumed after a mix-up in paperwork…all good things we waited to hear about. But it’s not the same.

Getting a letter of acceptance in the next day or so will mean so much to all of us. It means that despite the crap show that our lives have been lately, something has gone right for us. It means that somehow my husband and I managed to raise a smart, amazing, beautiful kid even with all the setbacks we’ve had. It means that we’ve helped her dreams come true even with the odds against us.

Of course, there’s still the matter of paying for it. We’re working on that. Fortunately, there’s are a lot of options for a family struggling financially and trying send a child to a private school. That’s something for us to wait anxiously to hear about in the near future.

Today, we wait for the mail and a large envelope on pins and needles.