I have something to confess. While you see me here in print, sharing thoughts about my unique life as the third of nine, spent entirely at altitude, I have been living a double life. I write in far more places and to far more people than just this column.

On the surface, my life looks fairly routine. I drive down the pass more often than I care to admit, spending my days inside classrooms. I study, read and take notes. I’ve participated in more small group projects that I can count. I’ve challenged myself in unexpected ways and for my efforts maintained straight A’s in a college environment that the state of Colorado also considers acceptable for a high school diploma.

But underneath the lectures and the homework I am at the tail end of a season that is blandly described as the “college admissions process.”

To the casual observer this process looks like a lot of paperwork. Truthfully it has been much more than that. Writing has become my ticket to seeing the world beyond Woodland Park. It started about a year ago when I wrote to MIT. That application could have easily disappeared into a digital void. Instead, it resulted in a plane ticket. I actually got to fly out and experience the campus firsthand. Recently, I visited another school on the East Coast after a similar attempt at reaching out.

But the physical travel is secondary to the mental distance I have had to cover. For months I have been tasked with sharing my unique life and my future ambitions within word counts that feel hopelessly limiting.

It is a frustrating constraint, but one that requires precision. When you only have a few hundred words to explain who you are to a person in an admissions office you have to be clear and concise while also remaining interesting. Foremost, you are forced to discover yourself first. Realizing who I am comes before I could ever type anything on a screen.

Now the essays are submitted and I am receiving responses back from schools interested in learning even more, but this time over Zoom for 45 minutes to an hour, interview style.

This brings me to the crossroads where I find myself today. Despite the travel, applications and interviews there is a vulnerability here that I think everyone can understand. I am waiting to see who will want me while I simultaneously try to plan my own life. While it is a strange feeling having your future held in the hands of people I have never met, I am trusting the process and (as always) figuring it out as I go.

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Ruth Wiseman is a Woodland Park native and a dual-enrolled high school student attending Pikes Peak State College