I'll Never Get It: Thoughts on rejection

image by dbking

"You can read your thing in front of me -- and the cats."

This is what my husband says to comfort me and make me laugh. I'm being sad and pissy about not being chosen to read for the BlogHer Community Keynote.

It works. I laugh. But when I walk away, I still feel sad, jealous, and angry. I'm surprised by how disappointed I feel. Then I sit down at the computer and decide to write about it, because what else is there to do but write?

Man, that last line was trite. No wonder my submission wasn't chosen as one of 16 among hundreds. Clearly, I suck. I'm not funny. I'm not poignant. I don't have a way with words. I'm never going to hack it as a "real" writer, whatever that is.

Okay, so I don't really believe all of those things. One rejection hasn't completely done me in. There was a time when I would have immediately jumped to those conclusions, but not now. Still, I do feel a bit like that guy from Sesame Street who tried his hardest to bang out classics like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" or "Yankee Doodle" on the piano and ended up banging his head off of the keys instead, crying out: "Oh, I'll never get it! Never!"

But you know the most annoying thing of all? Even in the midst of this hotbed of ugly emotions, the lesson of the situation crystallized almost immediately: I don't do many things that carry the possibility of rejection.

Aw, man! You mean there's a nice little lesson wrapped up in this uncomfortable feeling?

So now I'm disappointed and annoyed. Can't I just behave like a bratty five-year-old for five more minutes? Can't I just throw myself to the ground, kicking and screaming, bemoaning how unfair it all is?

I throw myself down kicking and screaming alright, but the lesson comes anyway. And like all realizations that emerge from uncomfortable moments, it's true: I don't risk rejection. And then the obvious significance of that epiphany surfaces: Is this why I keep putting off pitching articles to national magazines? Is this why I haven't figured out where to send my essays? Am I insulating myself from failure rejection?

Oooh, see that typo? I accidentally wrote "failure" instead of "rejection." Isn't that telling?

I went through a time with my freelancing when I was convinced I was -- and forever-would-be -- a failure. I really did weep and wail that I'd never get it. You want to know the crazy part? This came after I'd already had some significant and encouraging success. Heck, I quit my day job to freelance fulltime, confident that I could make a living at it. But then life got hard and I let various things overwhelm me. It became so much easier and more convenient to play the victim card. And you know what happened? The more I wailed that I'd never get it, the truer it became. My fear became a self-feeding parasite. The more I feared "failure," the more I "failed."

At the beginning of this year, I finally decided that I had to make one last stand and go down fighting. And do you know what happened? Of course you know what happened. Once I stopped focusing on the fear and potential failure, everything fell into place. Work rolled in, I picked up new clients, and my income in the first six months of this year is more than all of last year.

Over and over again, we must learn what we already know. So I guess that means it's time to stop playing it safe. This relatively minor but important rejection has pulled back the cloak from my fears, exposing them to the cold wind of self-awareness. I have nowhere left to hide. Not even hackneyed metaphors can save me now.

Letter to My Body

My Dear Body,

Oh the times we've had! Do you remember when...

Birth: We came out mooning the world! Our poor, petite mother was forced to give birth to a breach baby. We came out butt-first, which was a good indicator of how we'd relate to authority and being told what to do later in life.

Age 4: Remember when we had to drink that thick, pink stuff and stand on a little moving platform at the hospital, after complaining of tummy aches? Yeah, that was weird. Dad later discovered us drinking water out of the bathroom sink stopper. And that explained a lot.

Age 6: Until we had our adenoids removed, we couldn't really smell anything. But after the operation, it was like a whole new world. Manure was a big first. Remember that time we drove past the farms on the way to Aunt Mid's house and asked, "What's that smell?" Mom and Dad said, "It's the cows." And we said, "I don't like the cows!"

Age 8: Ohmygosh! Remember our Strawberry Shortcake bike? The one with the training wheels, pink and white streamer handles, and the plastic, white wicker basket? It was so fun when Dad took us to the parking lot below our house and taught us to ride. We even got good enough to take off the training wheels. And it's true what they say: You never forget. We got on a bike recently after a 15-year hiatus. And it was still fun -- legs pumping, wind in our hair, laughing all the way!

Age 10: We rushed around the rink on white roller skates, feeling the stale air blow past our face. For brief moments, it was like flying -- all to songs like "What's Love Got to Do with It?" by Tina Turner. Indeed, we didn't know.

Age 11: We were tall. Until sixth grade. Then everyone -- boys especially -- started to catch up with us. We were no longer one of the tallest kids in the class. And our friends started to call us the Incredible Shrinking Woman. That was funny. (It wasn't so funny when they changed it to the Incredible Shrinking Slut because we had so many friends who were boys. How could we be a slut? We hadn't even kissed a boy!)

Age 12: Tristan, our childhood sweetheart, finally kissed us! It tingled, didn't it? And he didn't seem to mind our braces, even though we felt self-conscious about them. When he finally French kissed us some time later, we instinctively knew that he was doing it wrong. After all, if you're going to use your tongue, it should do more than just lie there like a dead fish, right?

Age 13: Ah, this was the start of the ankle issues. Remember? We walked past Angela on the way to gym class. She was hobbling down the steps with her crutches. We thought to ourself, "I wonder what it's like to be on crutches." We were a little naive and thought it might be kind of fun. Half an hour later we were sitting on the cold basketball court, crying and grasping our ankle while the other girls kept running around us. That layup went wrong and we ended up with a nasty sprain that put us on crutches for two weeks. (That was our first lesson in the power of thoughts to become things.)

Age 14: We sprained the other ankle and ended up on crutches for another two weeks. This time we were running away from a boy for a prank we were pulling. We overestimated our ability to take the steps in a flying leap. Jumping six at a time was a bit much.

Age 16: About this time we learned the intoxicating effects of alcohol. And boys.

Age 18: This was the summer we had our tonsils removed after being sick every month of our senior year of high school. We'd just finished a big research paper on sleep and grilled the anesthesiologist about how the anesthesia compared to different phases of sleep. He said he didn't know. We worried about his professional expertise.

Age 25: Weight, which we've always considered an issue, suddenly got much harder at the quarter-century mark. Maybe it was the birth control pills, or possibly the effects of sitting at an office job for two years. Even now we wonder where these hips came from.

Age 31: We overcame a huge fear and started going to the gym. We finally understood all that blather about endorphines and energy from exercise. (Isn't it about time we got back to that?)

It's been a whily-twirly ride, Body. Sometimes we remember too much of the bad. And sometimes we're much too hard on the way we look. Let's look in the mirror and say "Beautiful!" Let's give thanks that all our parts still work. Let's dance in the living room more often, feel the warmth of the sun on our skin, savor the taste of fresh cherries. Let's give yoga another chance. Let's be strong and confident and sexy. Let's focus on pleasure, not decadence. Let's look forward to looking back on another 32 years of living together.

Love,
Your Mind & Spirit

This post is part of BlogHer's Letter to My Body Initiative.

The Fringe

I navigated a diverse social landscape during college. There was my core group of friends, kind of like my home base, most of whom I met freshman year because we lived with or near each other. Proximity bred familiarity, which bred friendship. During my sophomore year, I bonded with a gal from a different neighborhood (so to speak) when our similar taste in guys (okay, one guy) bred competition, then frustration, and finally kinship.

I scaled a whole new mountain during my junior year when I joined a sorority. I probably wouldn't have hung out with most of my new "sisters" otherwise. In some cases, our social circles just wouldn't have crossed. In others, I don't think we would have given each other much of a chance. But the sorority acted as a link between us, allowing us to find other common ground.

And then there was the alternative crowd, also known around campus as the AlternaHerd. In the social landscape of college, they were my dream destination. These were the artsy, rebellious types, and they were easy to spot on a campus largely comprised of conservative Christians. I was an English major and was involved with theatre, so I knew some of them. And oh how I wanted to be part of that crowd. They oozed coolness. No, not oozed. It's more like coolness wafted into a room with them, like perfume. The girls were like French women: projecting a sense of beauty no matter what they really looked like. To me, they seemed so strong and self-assured. And the guys were gay, grungy, or dark and broody, all without apologies.

I became friends with one of those dark and broody boys, and he was my entrée into that world. I was secretly thrilled, but tried to act nonchalant. He invited me to a Bible study that some of the AlternaHerds were holding. (Yes, even some of these cool, gay, broody kids believed in God.) The Bible study was like no other I attended. (And I attended two others.) We read passages of Scripture as literature, exploring the poetry of the language, the nuances of word choice, the subtleties of what was and wasn't explicitly said. Sometimes our conversations sounded more like literary criticism class than Bible study. The tone was less moralistic and more spiritual. After Bible study we'd smoke clove cigarettes out on the patio. I felt like I was on the cusp of something that never materialized. Beyond broody boy, I made a few vague friendships in that foreign land, but nothing substantial.

A few years after graduation, I saw my broody friend at a concert. I don't remember why, but we talked about how I went to that Bible study for awhile but never really broke into the group. "Oh, yeah," he said. "You were a fringe person!"

I don't think he said this to hurt me, but I felt exposed and humiliated. He'd named my secret shame: I had been a fringe person. And he was absolutely right, at least regarding that social circle. I'd known it back in college and hated it. I was horrified to realize that someone else knew it, too.

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I've always wanted to be different. I want people to think I'm unique, interesting, special. And yet I long to be accepted, to be part of a group. I may want to be on the fringe of what I consider the bland norm, but not on the fringe of the fringe.

I know I'm not the only one to wrestle with these opposing forces. At its heart, I think this paradox is driven by insecurity. As I've gotten older, my need to be viewed as different isn't so strong. I'm more rooted in -- and accepting of -- who I am and what I like. I'm learning to let it be enough to be myself, rather than striving to fit an image or ideal of "cool." Besides, I've met enough people to know that "cool" is in the eye of the beholder. I'm learning to use my own eyes as my mirror.

And still, I long to belong. I ache for community; a group of people who inspire, encourage, and support each other. Nine years out of college, my social landscape is still somewhat varied. It's also more geographically spread out. I have friends a few towns over and across the Atlantic. But as my college friends and I have changed from young 20-somethings to young 30-somethings, we haven't always grown in the same direction. The relationships seem to ebb and flow like an unpredictable tide. At times, despite these ties, I feel lost at sea.

I look around and wonder: Where is my tribe? Where are my people?

I haven't found them in my day-to-day life. Are they in my neighborhood? I live in a suburban sea where each house seems to be its own self-sufficient island, populated with people who belong to a different demographic than I do. I work from home, so my tribe is not at my office. (Is it a bad sign if I start counting the kits as part of my social circle?) I don't have kids, so they're not at my kids' school. Where do I go to find my people?

I've found people who could be "my people" online. Like my "real world" friends, they live around the U.S. and around the world. I've met some of them in person and exchanged emails with others. But some of them don't know who I am, or even that I exist. But I visit their blogs regularly, because they share things that speak to me; that make me feel less alone; that show me we're part of the same tribe, even if we don't call each other by name.

I've been trying to write about community and the "real world" since I came back from BlogHer last summer. I'm full of more questions than answers. How does online community differ from physical community? Is one more real or valuable than the other? In a world where people can live hundreds or thousands of miles apart and still stay connected through phone calls, text messages, emails, blogs, Flickr photo streams, Twitter updates, and even good old fashioned snail mail, does it really matter if we can't get together for an impromptu lunch or pop by to say hi?

I think it does. But I don't think it's the only thing that matters. What do you think?

Small is Beautiful

See that new button on the side of the page? Isn't it lovely? In a land where bigger is constantly touted as better, and size matters most in everything from McMansions to McMeals, it's nice to remember that small can be beautiful. And I'm not talking about in a good-things-come-in-small-packages-diamonds-are-forever kind of way. (Although good things often do come in small packages. But diamonds, while hearty, are not indestructible. But I digress...)

Inspired by their session at BlogHer '07, Rachelle Mee-Chapman (a.k.a. Magpie Girl) and Jen Lemen are reminding us that blogs (and other endeavors) don't have to be big to be beautiful. Behold the Small is Beautiful Manifesto:

• We believe stories are valuable, no matter how many people read them.
• We believe following your passion is more important that watching your site meter.
• We believe in the handmade, the first try, the small start, and the good effort.
• We believe that small is beautiful.

Find out who else is part of this little neighborhood, consider moving in yourself, and check out the Rachelle's Small is Beautiful Saturdays.

BlogHer Roll Call

Okay, this might be my last post about BlogHer. (I can't make any definite promises.)

Before I get to the people, let's talk about the stuff.

BlogHer '07 swag

The swag, it was copious. And some of it was really cool! (Did you know that the word swag can be considered a "backronym" for "stuff we all get"?)

Now for the people.

One BlogHer accurately described the weekend as camp while another gave us this fun list of the top 10 reasons to attend BlogHer. But one of my favorite descriptions is Claire Fontaine's analogy to a dog park. She writes:

You Put 800 Women in a Room

...And it's kinda like the dog park. All a dog really wants is to be with other dogs. Even timid little Fifi cuts loose, squealing with joy, chattering from one pooch to another. They just talk and talk and talk. And talk. Women don't bond in duck blinds or on the golf course. We bond verbally, from the moment we can (ask any woman who's had a son and a daughter.) Which means we get to do it anywhere, with strangers in the ladies room (Love your shoes! Aren't they great! I got them last week at...) and, thank God for technology, online. We can yak with a woman in India about film theory or a gal in Vancouver about diapers or menopause. Or politics. Fertility. Iraq. Sex. Shoes and makeup. Wine. Arctic travel. Ricotta cheese.

Here's a round-up of some of the great women I met at the "dog park." Or camp, if the comparison to dogs is a bit off-putting.

While in the buffet line for Friday morning breakfast, I met the enthusiastic Tracey (of the soon to launch Shutter Sisters) and may have slighted freaked her out by saying, "I know you! Or at least, I know your name!" Then, on the way back to my table, I passed a woman saying the phrase Nerdy Renegade News and got to meet Lisa from Ohio, whom I'd met through her comments on this blog. I then proceeded to end up in multiple sessions with her, promising that I wasn't stalking her.

During the insane "speed dating" warm-up networking on Friday morning, I stood next to the passionate Cooper, of newly-launched The MotherHood, who had excellent swag like this and this. She's also helping to head up BlogHers Act and is a fellow Pittsburgher. Other Pittsburghers in attendance included sketchblogger Elizabeth and Etiquette Grrl Lesley, who sat next to me on the shuttle bus. I also speed dated Carey of Holtzbrinck Publishers who insists that This November You Will Give a Damn as well as Karin who is creating a Garden Variety Family Calendar to show the diverse nature of families.

My blog heroes Jen and Rachelle were just as full of positive energy in real life as they are online (and did a great job of making me feel like I wasn't a total stalker freak). Through them I got to hang out with the intriguing Krystyn and met the joyful Myriam, who I didn't talk with nearly enough. Oh, and it should be noted that Rachelle's husband seemed totally at ease hanging out with hundreds of women. Rock on, Paul.

At the Friday night cocktail party I received a snazzy shot glass from Kristen of Mommy Needs a Cocktail. (And let's face, don't we all?) And then at another party I met Laura, the Girl con Queso herself, who introduced me to her lovely sk*rt colleague Laurie of Leap Design.

On Saturday I attended a lunch session with about a dozen other BlogHers and personal fitness trainer Jillian Michaels of NBC's The Biggest Loser fame. I'm not a raving fan of the show and wasn't sure about attending the lunch, but am glad I did. I discovered that Jillian's TV drill sergeant personality is just one layer of a very caring and real person. The session turned out to be surprisingly edifying (recaps here and here), and I met many determined women including busy mom Carmen and the international Shauna. I also got some encouraging words from the sassy Jessica and connected with Sheila and Melissa of Care.com.

The topics of the weekend were diverse! Anderson at Large schooled me in the ways of being a citizen journalist during a birds of a feather lunch, and Birdie shared her wisdom on writing good stories during a session and an Open Space round table. I met my new friend Misa Gracie at the eleventh hour, which made the Unconference totally worth it. The kits and I are honored to have made the BlogHer pets blog by chatting with Laurie on Sunday.

Who else? Who else? There were so many more! Can you see why my head was spinning? Did we meet and I neglected to include you here? Please correct my mistake in the comments! We can never have enough link-love.

Oh, and did I think to take pictures of any of these wonderful women? Nooooo -- I was too busy talking. But other people kept their heads together and took beaucoup de photos. Cruise the BlogHer Flickr pool.

And if you want more BlogHer, check out these session recaps, written by the live bloggers, brave ladies with very fast fingers. I'll be reading through these myself, since I missed some great session by attending other great sessions.