On rejection as protection & the uncertainty of the future.
Moving forward when we don't get what we initially want.
I’ve been facing a ton of rejections lately, and its been massively disappointing. Because I’ve been putting myself out there much more frequently in the literary world, this has created more opportunities for me to sit with, process, and share ongoing feelings of inadequacy and the grief of rejection.
I spent a great deal of this past summer, fall, and winter researching and applying for 11 fully-funded graduate programs for MFA’s in poetry. I organized my gig-work and temporary housing around the possibility that I could soon be moving out of state for school, which left me feeling ungrounded and liminal. The waiting periods during February, March, and April were agonizing, knowing that I could be notified of a new possible direction of my future at any moment. I ended up having to set limits for myself to only check my email twice a day to prevent myself from obsessively looking for grad school decisions (as it turns out, refreshing my email is not going to make those emails arrive any faster). Instead, between excruciating and irregular intervals, I watched one door after another close, and close, and close.
I ended up with 10 grad school rejections this application cycle, and one waitlist placement that I’m still waiting for a final decision on. Knowing that these were some of the most competitive schools in the U.S. — often with only 3 admittances per school, per genre — didn’t alleviate the pain of each rejection. And it wasn’t even the (highly subjective) rejections of my work I took to heart the most — it was primarily the fears of financial insecurity, housing insecurity, and job instability that were brought to the forefront of my nervous system.
Sadly, clarity of vision, intent, and desire doesn’t always line up with the actuality of our futures. I could map out and plan my future all I want, but I can’t escape the prospect of “failure” (or things just not working out like I hoped), or the unending list of factors and forces that are outside of my control. Rejection is a boundary (from others and from God) that informs me that the future that I think I want — or at times, that I think I cannot live without — may not be my future. Especially when it comes to relational and career rejections, this is often a crushing experience. I am instead left with the ever-present reality of the great unknown, and the sometimes frightening uncertainty of the future.
I have come to believe that rejection is a redirection from my limited self-will into the unlimited current of my higher power’s will. Rejection may be God’s protection from things that aren’t meant for me — or at least, not on my timeline. And sometimes, rejection of this nature is just a plain reflection of how underfunded the arts are, and the insufficient resources available to us. Rejection is not a reflection of my value as an artist or my worth as an inherently lovable human being. Though it is valuable information — rejection can point to the areas where I have room to grow, and I can choose to honor that information and move forward with those lessons.
Rejection is an often painful reminder that I don’t control the outcome of my efforts despite all of the footwork I do. But this should not discourage me from continuing to put in the footwork — knowing that, if our efforts were like the planting of seeds, it’s just not possible for every seed to bear fruit every season of every year. If I want to continue on in any which way, it’s my responsibility to keep on planting. It can be all of these things at once.
When I return to the serenity prayer (which I pray as often as I can remember throughout the day), I know that I cannot change which schools could not offer me an acceptance this year, nor can I change the disappointment I’ve felt after each rejection. I can’t change the quality of the work I submitted during the last application cycle (which, in the spirit of learning and growth, I would now do differently), who does or does not like my work, or even the political or spiritual biases of each reader. But I can change the other steps I take in the direction of my creative work, handing over the results of those efforts to my higher power.
I’m so happy that in these last few months, I’ve taken Ashia Ajani’s “Writing Nature Poetry: Lyrical Rewilding” class through the Philadelphia-based literary hub, Blue Stoop, which brought a number of poems out of me that I feel proud of. I’ve been reading and journaling daily, writing more poetry independently, and submitting to more literary magazines (and of course, getting more rejections). I launched this newsletter after taking Marlee Grace’s Newsletter Class, I’ve applied for writer’s residencies and retreats, I’ve applied to several new jobs, and, I’ve continued to focus on recovery from compulsive social media use every day, which had been the biggest block to my creative process and my communion with God for the entirety of my adult life.
I still don’t know what my future will look like, and the anxiety that comes along with what feels like an endless search for the next right thing has been wearing on me. There are some moments where I feel patient, present, and in the reality of what I have today, which is just barely enough — but enough — and some days where I am in a state of hopelessness and fear for my needs around the corner. There are few built-in safety nets in our economic system for those of us who work with a variety of health difficulties and needs, and it’s a really tough position to be in. There is also a very real crisis of job insecurity, especially since the pandemic began (hello two layoffs in the education sector since March 2020), and long-COVID has taken its toll on many of our abilities to function as we used to (also me, hello). I do not want to minimize those challenges, and, I am doing my best to cultivate trust in my higher power at the same time.
While my material security beginning this summer still feels unclear, I am grateful for what I have today, even if it’s temporary. Each morning and throughout the day, I pray for the knowledge of God’s will for me and the grace to move in that direction, whatever it may be. I don’t yet have those answers materialized, though I continue playing my part, calling out in many directions on the long horizon of stability-searching. These small, daily tiltings in the direction of my goals may just be doing more for me today than what I think is the end-all solution to having a financially stable creative career could have done for me. Or at least, for now, or for however long, knowing that there is the possibility of another year to try again, if I wish.
Be sure to check out Ashia Ajani’s debut poetry collection, Heirloom, which releases this week! Their virtual launch party is this Thursday, April 20th at 8:30pm EST. Register here ⋆。°✩
“Dissolve” by Edythe Rodriguez (Upper Darby, PA) in The Offing Mag. We took Ashia Ajani’s poetry workshop together, and I am stunned by Edythe’s work.
Fatima Jafar’s “Coin” in The Drift Mag.
Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters I snagged from Iffy Books in Philadelphia’s Callowhill neighborhood.