My hands shook as I read the contents of the letter. My eyes scanned the paper, unable to believe that this was really happening. I felt the paper slip out of my hands and fall to the ground as I fell on my knees. This was really happening. This was really here, and my entire life would be different because of it.
Two months ago, I had stood right by this dinner table with my mother. She had been ill and dying, but she'd refused to get hospitalized. I remember a particular evening when she'd sat me down and made me promise her something difficult.
"Joyce, look at me. Promise me that you will become a doctor. I mean, I'm dying and I want you to become someone the world can look forward to when they are in my place." I'd said yes. I'd promised to tie my entire life to trying to save people like her.
However, when my mother died a week after that promise, my whole life was shattered. That promise became the root of my bitterness - it felt like she still had a hold over my destiny, a hold over my life.
I didn't want to spend my life chasing shadows, hoping to catch her or save her. I didn't want to become that person whose passion was just an escape from the past. I wanted to be me and chase my dreams.
The problem with my dreams was that they were always over the top. I wanted to become an actor. I knew I was good at it because of how much time I'd put into it - day after day and year after year. It had become the one thing that defined me.
The week my mother died, I auditioned for a role, I was to play the part of a girl who had just lost her mother. I gave it my best and fuelled myself from the experience I was still going through, but the auditioners said there wasn't enough pain in my acting. They dropped me.
I felt that was a sign, that somehow my promise had bound me to a destiny of chasing my mother's dream instead of my own. But I refused to quit. I kept going for audition after audition after audition till it became the only thing that helped me deal with the grief.
It became the only thing that helped stave off the angry and frightening thoughts.
Yesterday, after being dropped for the 100th time, an auditioner finally told me something that put it all into perspective.
"You will never make it to the big screen." He said.
"Girls like you can be very successful, just not in front of other people."
I cried myself to sleep last night and in my dreams, I saw my mother's crying face. I knew she was ashamed of me. I was sorry I had failed her and when I woke up, I decided I would apply for medical school and lay my dreams to rest at last.
A letter came in a few hours after I made my decision and when I picked it up, it took everything in me not to throw it down. It was from the auditioner I met yesterday. He was apologizing for being disrespectful.
The letter said 'my team watched your video and against my opinion, they think you have real talent and would like to work with you as the star of our new production. '
I closed my eyes as the tremors took over again, I wonder if it meant anything to my mother that I was finally going to live my dreams. If it would make her happy to see me break down in utter gratitude. I wonder if it will make a difference to her that I am not saving the world.
I really hope my mom can forgive me. I hope she can forgive a broken promise. I don't know yet if this will be everything I want it to be. But I trust that I am saving the world too - just differently than I'd promised.
I am saving my mother and millions of people like her, just not in the way she had wanted. I hope she can forgive me for lying. I never meant to fail her. I hope she knows that, wherever she is.