I Never Not

It is a terrible thing to not be chosen

Our talents unrecognized and publicly dismissed among our peers

The soul cries out in grief

Not being chosen starts out innocently enough in youth

the game, the sleep over, the classroom chore, the dance

The rejection does accumulate in the recesses of neurotransmitters

the job, the housing co-op, the room share, the grant, the TA

one is catapulted back to childhood memories of sitting on the bench all season

the friday night phone call from girlfriends that never came

the silent smoking of cigarettes alone standing in the rain

everything changes so they say but some things remain the same

It’s not you it’s them you don’t want to be part of that

of course your are right who needs to be valued among their peers

your talents unseen or worse diminished due to some failed appearance norm

social context changes but emotions attached to those contexts of rejection remain

I find it has not gotten any easier to cope with being the un-chosen

I just have a larger vocabulary to rationale why I should’nt care.

I have been languishing in a job at an organization that I loath trying to find my way out and beyond limitation.  The paradox – this employment offers me the material luxuries of food, clothing, and shelter on a scale of nice that I have not always been so fortunate to experience.  I have always managed to shelter even if it meant sleeping in my car.  At least I had a car.  I have always had clothes even if they came from someone else’s closet. I have always had food even if it meant trolling through hospitals gathering untouched food from patients trays in the back corridors of food service.  My needs have always been met.

But now they are being met so nicely.  The shelter, a lovely cottage on the bluffs of the Mississippi, food purchased without the slightest thought of my bank balance, knowing I have enough to purchase anything I want without sacrificing in other areas, like gas to get to work, or school expenses for the children.   I no longer receive all my clothes from someone else’s closet.  Although I do prefer the clothes that “come to me” as opposed to the clothes I seek out in retail stores.  They just seem to suit me better – my own judgement on appearance norms is way out of balance.

I have worked at what I do for over 2 decades and I am waking up to the fact that I may not be well suited for this job and this could explain the decades of unrelenting anxiety. My anxiety and insecurity have driven me in directions of self preservation that are at best outrageous.  I even went so far as to join a religious cult of sorts, hoping God would rescue me.  I am there now, the religious cult,  and wondering what was I thinking?  How can something so utterly wrong be so materialistically successful?  God does not seem to be here and if She was what would she think of all this being done in Her name.  Dreadful.  God is Good Always even when we are not.

In the middle of the existential madness I notice a book on the “giveaway” bench.  “One continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers”.  Gail Sher.

OMG – what??!  Who would give away such a treasure, a key to the portal of the sacred.   I picked it up thinking my soulful manna has just dropped from the sky.  The universe telling me “go this way”.  Seriously what are the odds?

Am I being cosmically nudged into writing?   Is there even a cosmos that nudges?