I stumbled into my dark house with tears welling up in my eyes.  My purse dropped to the floor like there was an actual brick inside.  I stripped off every piece of clothing I had on.  My makeup stained sweatshirt was the first to go, and the tears were falling faster than I could wipe them away.  By the time I made the short walk to the bathroom, there was a trail of personal effects that I couldn’t be bothered to clean up.  Not tonight.  Maybe tomorrow.  I turned on my shower and leaned against the tile until I saw the steam form.  I tilted my head back, and stood there naked and exposed for the second time today while my makeup, my tears, my anxiety, my fear, my sadness, my everything ran down my body and down the drain.  I looked at my white ceiling, and I wondered why can’t it be this simple?  Today I faced my fear.  I stood nose to nose with my fear, and I said take your best fucking shot.  The fear of the not knowing is worse than the knowing, I thought.  And so rejection came out and kicked my ass like Diamond in the conclusion of Player’s Club.  Rejection tossed me around like a rag doll, and left me feeling insecure and alone.  I tried to fight back.  I will not go silently into the darkness.  Not today bitch.  But rejection said that’s cute girl and tossed me right back on the floor.

I went to church.  I took notes.  I ate my feelings twice over.  I drank too much red wine.  I cried on my sister’s shoulder.  I laughed.  I laughed so hard that I cried again.  I wrote a list of intentions for the new moon.  I read quotes from The Alchemist.  I verbally purged every bad thought I had about myself, and I realized I had not one single bad thought about the rejection itself.  I added find a fucking therapist to my list of things to do for the week.  I ate some more of my feelings.  I thought about things I should give up as a fast.  I took the long way home, and I played no music because I wanted to hear my thoughts.  I wanted to listen to myself.  I wanted to be present.  The thing about rejection is that it doesn’t begin or end with that one occurrence. Every time it happens, you are reminded of every time before, and all of those instances stand there like a Terracotta Army and look at you mockingly while your ego dies a slow death.  I walked all the way home holding my ego up while it tried to collapse.  I carried its maimed body up my four flights of stairs and then I stumbled into my dark house with tears welling up in my eyes.

When I got out of the shower it took the entirety of my strength just to dry off.  I stared at my reflection in the mirror through tear drenched eyes, and felt drained and empty.  I turned away and crawled into my bed.  I looked out my window and saw and heard the wind blowing violently through the trees.  I let a melatonin melt on my tongue and I prayed myself to sleep.  I woke up three hours before I should have and the memories of the day came rushing back, and there was rejection again, looming over me.  I suddenly didn’t want to fight it, because I remembered all the times rejection has saved me, and motivated me.  I remembered that rejection is inevitable, but the lesson is in how we handle it.  We can’t fight it every time it appears.  Instead we should discover what it is there to teach us about ourselves.  We may not see what we were saved from immediately, hell, we may never see the alternative present we would be in if it weren’t for rejection, but we have to trust two things.

 

• It is much better to live boldly and fearlessly, and not have to wonder what if? If we are never vulnerable, if we are always afraid, we deny ourselves a true experience.
• All things will come together for our good. Maybe not right now.  Maybe not tomorrow.  But it will all make sense eventually.  You can never stop believing that.

 

By the time I woke up as scheduled, I felt better.  I saw rejection and felt the knowing in the pit of my stomach, and I welcomed it.  We have some things to discover.