Personal Rejection

Personal rejection...
It is still a rejection no matter how personal.  I woke this morning to find one of these in my inbox.  Right now I am going back and forth between, "Wow, this is exciting!  The best I've gotten so far." And the other end of my emotions, darn it.  :(  I was really hoping this was it.

Baby steps.  Yes, this is good.  But I want to fly.

This has been a spring unlike any before.  I cannot count how many letters and resumes I have sent out looking for a teaching position.  I have even begun to expand my search to include things not so much related to teaching.  I have also been sending out or waiting for word from the stories that I have submitted.  So far all rejections, some more personal than others.  They are all making me feel very tired.

Or maybe I'm tired because my brain refuses to let me sleep.  Hehe..  Just last night, I was nearly dozing off at the computer.  This is a sure sign it is time for bed.  So I put my computer down and turned off the light.

Of course this is when my brain says, "Time to Write."

When I try to ignore it and answer, "I'm tired.  I was just falling asleep."

My brain replies, "No time for sleep.  The words will explode here unless you get them down."

I roll over grab my notebook, pen and flashlight... flashlight because it feels less like I'm waking up and more like this will only take a minute or two.

The words my brain refuses to let me ignore are a haiku about Spring.  The kids and I have been reading about haiku.  We are planning to write some as one of our summer writing projects.

I wrote three poems, all about Spring.  Then I closed the notebook and laid both it and my pen down.  Finally I turned off my flashlight.  I thought that now I would be able to sleep.  There was no fear of forgetting my words before the morning.   But it seems that I was nowhere near finished writing for the night.

I rolled and tossed.  The words refused to remain unheard.  This time I gave in.  I turned the light on, sat up, and knew I would write until the end.  I wrote three more haiku about the spring.  Then I moved on to summer, fall, winter and even one about New Years.  I had learned that in Japan New Years is counted nearly as its own season.  So of course my I could not leave it out.  In the end I had twenty haiku, twenty tastes of the seasons from my point of view.

I laid still for a while wondering if I was finished.  By now even more tired than before, though my eyes were not closing just yet.  I did not turn the light off, if sleep should come what would I care if the light was still shining on.  I turned the page, empty and ready for my words.  I held my pen.  I laid my head down on my bed.

No more Haiku.  But I filled two more pages, an outline of the story I would be starting.  It is another of our summer writing projects.  This one I will be sure to share more about as my children and I work through it.  When these words were down on paper, safe and ready for me to really start working on them, then I finally turned the light off and went to sleep.

Of course the morning brought that lovely personal rejection.  The funny thing is that had I picked up my computer and wrote there, I would have seen the rejection letter.  It had been received as I wrote there in the dark of night.

I shared the words of the letter with my children.  I guess my brain was preparing me, no time to moan or sigh.  There is only time to write.  Who needs sleep anyway!