Personalized Rejection
Letting go is the curriculum.
Spring warmed to summer not long after the final boxes had been moved out. I emerged from my apartment one evening—I was still getting used to calling it “mine” again—and noticed fresh bursts of green had exploded across the treetops, rising to the occasion of peak season, glowing emeralds against an amber dusk. I had burrowed into myself for weeks, but it felt like waking up, to smell dirt and cool air and the river, and my heart thumped at the reminder of the cycle, the turnover, the rhythm. A relief.
Since the split, I had successfully avoided the apartment almost entirely, bouncing between soft landings at the homes of my closest confidantes. The semester had ended, no longer requiring me to teach on campus, and I could fulfill my full-time job from anywhere; I indulged in long stretches with friends who took me along for errands, invited me to parties with new faces, made sure I ate dinner. They let me sleep late in their guest rooms, prying tiny hands from doorknobs and shooing curious minds, let Aunt Bip rest, leaving my favorite bagel on the kitchen counter.
They wrapped their arms around my crumpled shoulders and pulled me up, dusted me off, reminded me of the important things—that I was better now. Safer. In their cocoons, regenerating, I began to stretch around the grief, and I could see it out in front of me, not yet able to hold it, but I knew: I was going to be fine.
I felt closer to myself in the company of my people—their nearness called me back into my body, my legs seemed to wobble less. I stayed as long as I could. But eventually, and unfortunately, I’d run out of clean underwear, forcing me home to confront the ghost.
I treated my trips to the apartment like I was running the course of “Legends of the Hidden Temple”: I was on the clock, and the longer I spent digging around, poking things, the more likely something was going to jump out and end me. So I changed out the items in my weekender like a one-woman pit crew and split before you could say irreconcilable differences.
It was this type of exit that led me out in haste on that warm evening, when a nervous shadow in my peripheral stopped me. I turned to find myself staring down a rabbit, frozen and unblinking, a blade of grass sticking out from the side of its pinched little mouth. The general consensus is that rabbits are cute, but have you ever really contemplated their expression? Their eyes are widened with cocaine paranoia. They are on guard. They do not trust. They are ready to split.
In the moment of my standoff, I recalled a recent Instagram hole I traveled down, where I inhaled videos of a golden retriever and pet rabbit who became best friends. I had opened the comments to read the unhinged ways people would ruin their fluffy union, and one commenter had written in all caps: RABBITS ALWAYS KNOW THEIR EXITS SO THIS IS REAL TRUST AND TRUE LOVE FOR BEAR AND MIGHTY SMOLS GOD IS GOOD.
Despite the disregard for proper punctuation and capitalization, my mind snagged on something: they always know their exits. Was it true? Who knows—the uppercase nature of the message was a reliable indicator of misinformation. But what I thought of, when I considered exits, is that I never find them—I don’t even look. I have to be led there, sometimes shoved, and potentially embarrassed to find the person showing me the door had been pointing directly to it for quite some time. I am nothing like the rabbit. Over and over, I miss the chance to leave when it’s my choice. He’s the rabbit, I thought. He always knew his exit.
I took a slow step—I didn’t want to scare him—but the rabbit bolted toward the street. It did feel a little on-the-nose, but I couldn’t help but think of the old adage: what isn’t for you, runs directly into traffic to get away from you.
A few months later, I thought back to that moment, that evening, that rabbit. I thought of exits and knowing when to find them. I had ignored the signs, missing my chance, again. This time, the scenario was quite different, but when someone is telling you it’s over, the letting go is all the same.
I leaned back into the sunlight coming through the window, resting my head against the wall. A viscous, nauseating blend of fear and regret surged in my stomach. Just moments prior, I was laid off from my full-time job. I still had my part-time gig teaching at the college—I could count on that. But in a conversation that lasted less than three minutes, years of dedication, and my main source of income, fell like dust into the wind.
The Google Meet window remained open on the computer that was no longer mine. It had been unceremonious—I was removed from the Slack channel within moments and asked to provide my contacts from the project I had just wrapped.
It was only about a month earlier when they applied some pressure to finish that project. At the time, I couldn’t put precise words to it, but the push lit me up like a Christmas tree. To the credit of my internal systems, my brain had nudged me a few times: sooooooo, are you aware there is a massive amount of blood in the water?
Wanting to believe in my perception of the company and my role within it, I shrugged, what blood?
But there had been…things—things that glare at me now: missed paychecks, canceled meetings, no new project announcements or discussions about growth. The kaleidoscope of hindsight fractured my tenure into moments I shoulda, woulda, coulda heard the warning siren blaring in the distance. But I willfully, ignorantly, ignored it.
Instead, I did what I do best—I hung on for dear life, not unlike the relationship that had ended months before. Sure, it was a different type of relationship, and a different scenario, but it was also more of the same: I denied what was playing out right in front of me, and once again, instead of getting out, I barnacled, until I needed to be scraped off.
I didn’t know my exits. I didn’t even bother looking for one, despite the imminent danger, which is what led me to ponder the wide-eyed escape artist again. I am nothing like the rabbit, who readily finds a reason to flee.
In the corner of my couch, with the sun on my face, I measured the scant reasons to stay against all that had begged me to go; all that I justify on behalf of someone else, the shapes I take on so that I fit, the needs I mangle so that I won’t lose.
It would appear that I’m not yet sure what is best for me. Each time I think I’ve got it, I try to save it to the “long-term” file in my brain, only to find I’m missing a chip in my motherboard—I can’t make the conversion. But I have been collecting a unique dataset along the way.
I know with certainty that what is for me will not flee or fawn. What is for me presents challenges but not impossibilities. It is not afraid to be caught promising. It finds the latch to open, not to escape. If I am spinning like a globe, it doesn’t send me off my axis—it drops a finger on me.
Writing has always achieved this for me. I run to it every time—journals that span the course of my life are proof. I once read something by Joan Didion where she confessed to writing entirely to find out what she is thinking—agree, I thought. I haven’t fully processed something until I’ve written about it, in one way or another.
In the wake of my layoff, holding this truth closely, I decided to switch my focus: I would lean into my stride as a writer and teacher, allowing myself to reach in frightening and fascinating ways for a different kind of future. Part of that commitment required finishing an essay, standing on my tippy toes to meet the standards of some of the best literary magazine publishers in the country, with the intention of submitting it for publication.
I had submitted fiction in the past—always rejected—but creative nonfiction was new territory. It felt scarily personal—especially when the rejections came. I had expected it—these publications typically accept somewhere between 1 and 7-percent of submissions, and they receive thousands—but it was like a bully flicking me in the forehead at recess and not a lunch aide in sight. I had to take it, and I had to let it go.
When I saw an email from one of the more prestigious literary magazines I had submitted to, I prepared for another boilerplate rejection. I opened the email, my eyes searching for the painfully nonspecific “Dear Writer” opening, when the length of the message gave me pause.
It was a few short paragraphs, and my heart jumped into my throat. Usually, the rejections were swift and concise. This had sentences—lots of them.
The silly little joke was on me, though, because as I read, I came to understand that it was, in fact, a rejection—just a lengthier one. But it was a personalized rejection. The feedback was specific to my piece, from the editors, with notes on the material. This is not the rule for responses—this is the exception.
I felt tears build, some from frustration, of course, but it was more than that. I had received a personalized rejection from a literary magazine that I have great respect for. They encouraged me to refine the piece and submit again in the future. They addressed my work—specific thoughts on my syntax and diction. Not only had they read past the first few paragraphs, where most readings conclude, but they read it with great interest and hoped to hear from me again. They told me, in no uncertain terms, keep writing.
The final comment summarized the reason they ultimately rejected the piece: not enough self-reckoning.
I sat back in the familiar spot on my couch, where the sun comes in and warms my face. I took a breath and felt the hard knock of my beating heart, a reminder. The cycle.
All personalized rejections—the heartache, the career, the submissions—come at a cost, for certain, but it is a necessary clearing. The things that run, that reject—they’re filled with clues. Messages in a bottle on the shores of loss and despair.
This is the curriculum.
A smile split the salty tear tracks across my cheeks, and I moved from the email to Microsoft Word and opened the submission.
I scrolled the piece, looking for where to begin my self-reckoning.
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