To Go or Not to Go, That is the Question

So Brian has been very up and down with his decision to go to AMDA next Spring. At first we were all ecstatic of course. Not everyone makes it in, and it would be an amazing experience for him, and we’re both excited to move to New York City, yadda yadda yadda…

We hit the first snag early on. We realized we had to come up with $500 sometime in April as a deposit, and as the due date drew nearer, Brian grew depressed. “I’m not going. We’re too poor.”

By some miracle he was able to talk his way into extending his due date until the 30th of June. We thought that would be plenty of time to save up $500.

On Mother’s Day I had to work, but he went to his family’s house where he mentioned New York and his parents told him that they wouldn’t help pay a dime of it. I wrote a whole post about it already. That was the day Courtney secretly slipped him $50. Although his sister’s contribution was very touching, knowing his parents weren’t willing to help him was a huge blow to his confidence and his resolve.

However, they had given him a false ray of hope in hinting that they might possibly maybe just maybe cosign a loan with him if we could pay back all the money we owe them and pay off all our credit cards. So he was happy again.

But now that happiness is fading. June 30th is just around the corner, and we only have $150 saved with the possibility of adding maybe another $100 before that due date arrives. It’s really hard to save when you barely make enough to cover bills… and we’ve yet to start getting paid for our second jobs.

He’s depressed all over again. I keep suggesting ways that we could get the money scraped together by then. If Jeff ever pays me we should be okay. Maybe we could skip on some bills this next paycheck. But still he says that it doesn’t matter if we can pay the deposit, because we’ll never be able to pay for his tuition. Brian spoke to his father recently, making sure that he’d gotten our first few checks working off our debt to him, and he mentioned the promise his dad had made. But his father acted like there was no such promise. “I only said ‘maybe’ Brian…”

So we’ve come to realize that we are all alone in this. And alone, we will never qualify for a loan big enough to cover even one semester. Our credit is just too horrible, and the school is just too expensive.

Now I don’t know what to do. Should I scrimp and save and make that deposit happen by the end of the month? Or should I not waste $500 if he has no more intention on going? If he really wanted it, wouldn’t he make it happen? If he’s willing to quit now, does that mean he never really wanted it in the first place? Was his heart never in it?

I just don’t know. I really don’t know what’s going to happen now.