I’ve been rejected four times in the last couple of months—on three submissions and a retreat I’d applied to. The last rejection, which came in today on a reported personal essay about psychosis and menopause, was particularly painful. I’d worked on this story for three months before submitting it, and I had such big, shining hopes. The stakes were also very high; a major publication was interested. But it clearly wasn’t meant to be.
My stomach dropped into my feet when I got the (very nice) no from the editor today, on my birthday no less. When you’re writing memoir, rejection feels like a rejection of who you are, not just what you wrote. After I allowed myself to feel the disappointment, to really feel it in my bones, to feel my stomach sink and sink, I decided to look for the good.
This looking for the good, it’s a new practice for me. My default is to see and assume the worst in all things, but I’m looking to shift up my conditioning and have a more nuanced approach to the years of life that remain to me. Not to see the glass as half full, but to see the fucking glass in its entirety—the glass, the fullness, the emptiness all coexisting. And to drink that shit down in one gulp.
Here’s the good, and it’s really good: the research I did for the piece that got rejected helped me to comprehend a key part of my story around menopause and psychosis, and how it relates to early trauma. Because of that research, I went on estrogen in May, and that changed my fucking life. (This is basically what I wrote about in the rejected essay.)
I’m so glad that I did the research, and wrote the thing, even if it never sees the light of day. I hope it does see the light of day, though, because I wrote it in hopes of resourcing other people who have dealt with similar mental health challenges during the menopausal transition.
And then I thought, maybe I can resource those folks in other ways? I’m not giving up on getting this piece (or some version of it) published, but I’ve got other dreams percolating, too.
I talked to my beloved friend Y earlier today, and we reflected on the perspective that comes from experiencing early trauma. When the worst stuff has pretty much already happened to you, everything after that is kind of whatevs in comparison. It’s not that I don’t freak out about stuff. I definitely do. But deep down I know—even as I’m mid freak-out—that it’s just not that big of a deal.
Life is short as fuck. Especially when set against these days of collapse we’re living. Collapse really does put a thing in perspective.
This morning I went to one of my favorite places, Great Falls, on these stolen Manahoac lands. I haven’t had a chance to go for a while, so it felt like a real treat. The steady, dramatic roar never ceases to get old. When I came upon them, the sun shining on the rapids, I was renewed, batteries recharged for another year of life. How I love the force and the power of the falls. How fucking relentless they are.
I let them teach me. I guess that is how I deal with rejection, isn’t it? To be relentless like these damn falls. When life tells you no, keep trying anyhow. Find a way around, like the water makes its way with the massive, ancient rocks.
The world would rather people like me be silent and/or dead.
One day I’ll be dead. But not quite yet. Not quite yet.
I turned 48 years old today. I hate the word midlife, because it innocently assumes a long life that some of us never reach. Midlife for my mother was 23.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Shuhada Sadaqat/Sinead O’Connor. Midlife for her was 28. How she was fucking murdered by the same world that’s lauding her to the skies after her death. Grief upon rage upon grief upon howls at injustice.
Today I am two years older than my mother ever lived to be. Driving to the falls this morning, I cried and cried with the truth of it. My aging body is filled with such a strange brew of grief and gratitude. It’s an overwhelming mixture, sometimes.
It’s a surreal feeling to want to be here, after all the times I haven’t wanted to be alive. It’s a novelty to want to stay, to want to see what this life has to show me, to discern how I can be of some small service in this collapsing world. To be more curious than despondent, even in the midst of all the things—that is a very weird sensation.
My mother sacrificed everything for me to be. I don’t owe her anything for that, of course, but I honor her choice. I think I’m staying until the end, no matter fucking what.
This brings me to my birthday promise. I’m going to start posting here once a week instead of once a month. And I promise that I am going to post more updates on this journey to get a book deal by the time I’m 50. I’ve been afraid to show this process to any of you, in case I fail. What if I fail?
The odds are decent that I do fail, and slim that I won’t. I’ve already come to accept that. Well, at least I am fucking trying, right? At least I cared about something so much that I was willing to pour years of life and energy into it—a lifetime into it. Relentless like the falls.
And if I don’t believe in my work, even against rejection after rejection, who the fuck will?
I know y’all believe in me too, which is the greatest present I can ask for. Thank you.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, dear Leah❤️🎶
Happy birthday!! The rejections are so hard, but you are absolutely right- you are trying, and that is all we can do. One word at a time. I believe in you and your writing!