Rejectioooon! Rejection!

It’s the bane of my very existence. It’s the reason I don’t always finish what I start. Case in point: there is a “book,” several chapters and ten’s of thousands of words long, mocking me from my desktop. I’ve worked on it off and on for longer than I’m willing to admit – and y’all know I tell you everything. Adding insult to injury, there are a number of people in my life who have finished their books, while I just sit here staring at that icon wondering if it’s worth it to double-click.

Part of the problem is that I have no idea what I want to do with the book when it’s finished. I mean, obviously I want it picked up by a major publisher who falls in love with me, my rapier wit and raucous sense of humor, and who wants to spend tons of money to promote it and ultimately, I end up on Oprah discussing it as part of her book club and reaping huge accolades for having changed the lives of people worldwide.

Since the chance of that happening is equal to that of me divesting my shoe collection, I have to look at what the outcome of sending off the completed manuscript would do to my psyche. I'm certain that in no time I’d be in the bottle doing my impression of Hemmingway without the Parisian café.

Rejection is hard. I’m fairly certain that’s why so many people just stare across a crowded bar or create a “sausage row” against the wall instead of, oh I dunno, taking the initiative to see what could happen. I figure the worst possible scenario is that you introduce yourself to someone and they turn out to be déclassé enough to scorn your effort. Upside: You found out before the first date. That’s a nice little money saver. Like getting a dating coupon for use at another venue.

I ate a gigantic pile of edamame for dinner last night, while lying on the floor and pondering this rejection thing. I started to list different types of rejection then decided it was entirely too depressing that I could come up with nine without much hesitation. Needing a new perspective, naturally I hauled my 15 pound International Dictionary out – the only one I trust since the dark day the online dictionaries decided that “dis” is a word, not a prefix.

I seriously laughed and snorted when I read these:

Re-ject’: To refuse to have, use, or take for some purpose.

Re’-ject: One rejected as not wanted, unsatisfactory, or not fulfilling standard requirements.

Yep. Standard requirements are the criteria and these are definitely the definitions I’m most familiar with. I’ve probably used one or both individually or in tandem in an effort to eliminate some newly identified unnecessary person from my life. Bottom line is that rejection, in most forms, is pretty damned funny. Aren’t most of your best stories based in that, or some variation of humiliation? Oh hell, all of mine are! If you didn’t have rejection stories to tell, you’d most likely end up like those sad-sacks on Jeopardy whose “best story” is about the time they lost a shoe in a creek then had it returned to them a week later because they’d had the foresight to write their name in Sharpie marker on the inside.

Now to appease what I’m sure is your rampant curiosity (*sarcasm*) I will tell you that I have no intention of double-clicking that icon on my desktop today. My bathroom scale already informed me I’m not allowed back until I’m willing to step on one person at a time, so my rejection quota for the day has been satisfied.