We loaded up my parents' Suburban and drove north until we hit snow. When we arrived on campus, we were greeted by a tall, skinny junior, with long, dirty hair, wearing shorts, flip flops and a hoodie that read, "Privatize This" with a picture of a brain on it. With the straightest of expressions he introduced himself as "Pear." I was irked when my father chuckled. Even more so when he said, "I'm sorry, Perry is it?" "No," said Pear. "It's Pear. Like the fruit."
Pear took us around the campus and showed us the art studios, the writing labs, the expressive yoga rooms, the reading lofts and the cafeteria that served mostly vegan foods. When he walked us across the Quad (heads up, all colleges have an area called the "Quad", so don't think that's some sort of selling point) he took his shoes off so his "toes could be one with the grass." We passed a couple making out on a hemp blanket, and a guitar-playing loner, who Pear informed us was the Poetry Department Chair.
After our campus tour, I was scheduled to be interviewed by the Dean of Admissions, who had reviewed my application and was "decently impressed" with my entrance essay, but thought meeting me would help the committee make its final decision. I left my parents with Pear to, as I can only assume, smoke a bowl, and went into my two hour interview. Many of the questions were well above my knowledge base, but I was able to give her honest and profound reflections on the latest Jonathan Franzen novel, and I nailed the question about the nation's abuse of the semi colon. I walked out of there knowing that, while I may not have been perfect, I had done the best I could. When we left campus, Pear waving to us in the rearview mirror, I knew one thing: I wanted to be accepted.
And so, back at home, I waited.
And waited.
Until one day, months after our visit, I received a very flat envelope with Grinnell's logo in the top left corner. They regretted to inform me, but they did not think I was a good fit for their program.
No nationally renowned writing program. No award-winning library. No making out with Pear, wearing ponchos, while our friends played hackie sack to the music our poetry professor belted out across the Quad.
I had been rejected.
My father, as all good fathers are, was uncomfortable with my sadness. He continually reassured me that this is part of life and the best thing to do is to tour more campuses. But my mother, as all good mothers are, was vengeful. She took the letter, pressed it out flat and read it over and over and over. Then she opened the file folder in which she kept only the most important of documents, which included all her children's birth certificates and her tomato torte recipe, and laid the letter on top.
"Mom, why are you keeping that?" I asked through tears.
"For when you make it big, darling. I can give this to Oprah."
Yes, my mother kept that rejection letter so that Oprah would one day sit next to me on her sparkling white couch and hold my hand and say, "I cannot believe you, a person beloved by millions, the richest, most successful woman in all the world, was once rejected by a small, liberal arts college in a corn field! I just can't believe it!"And this would inevitably spark a boycott of Grinnell College, as fervent as the beef boycott she sparked in the 90s, which would ultimately force Grinnell to close due to its wild unpopularity spurred by universal loyalty to me.
Later, when I settled on another college with a strong writing program, I was encouraged by my professors to submit my writings for publication. I sent out numerous essays to various literary journals and magazines all over the nation. I received 22 rejection letters all saying the same thing:
No thanks.
Rejection wasn't just confined to my writing aspirations. I once professed (mentioned in passing) my deep love (moderate appreciation) for a guy I met at college who responded by saying, "You're nice, but I'm looking for someone more domestic to settle down with." I was rejected by two PhD programs before I was accepted into the one I completed. I produced about a year's worth of negative pregnancy tests, and endured a failed round of fertility treatments before I became pregnant. And now, I'm in the middle of my post-doctorate job search, and am getting rejected left and right.
But most recently, the rejection I'm struggling the hardest with is of a more personal nature. This past month, my child has transitioned to full time day care and I'm back at work. This is a radical transformation from the first two years of her life, during which we spent most every day, all day, together. Needless to say, we've become close.
But in the move to full time day care I've noticed that she's showing subtle signs of struggling with all the change. She's become needier.
For her father.
At night she wants Daddy to brush her teeth and read to her. In the mornings she wants Daddy to pick out her clothes. She wants Daddy to rock her dolls and Daddy to run through the sprinklers with her.
Recently, she took a tumble and hit her head on the hardwood floors. The kind of fall that you know by sound alone was bad. Jim and I both rushed to her side but she immediately reached for him. I tried to join in the hug, desperate to offer my love and support, but she shook me off of her. Slapped at me to go away and buried her face in Jim's chest. My typical remedy of kissing her boo-boo and scolding the hard surface she collided with was not what she wanted. She wanted her father.
This destroyed me.
And my feelings about this surprised me. It flew in the face of the pride I have in her extreme independence. How I love that she springs out of my arms when I drop her off at school while other children claw at their parents' necks, screaming dramatically. How I revel in the fact that my child is self-possessed, confident, strong willed and wildly independent. So in that moment when she rejected my love, I started crying alongside my hurting child, who wouldn't let me kiss her, wouldn't let me touch her, wouldn't let me make it better.
It was momentary. After a few minutes she was on the couch brushing my hair out and caking pretend make up on my face. But I couldn't shake the feeling of the first moment my child made a choice about which parent she wanted, needed, and she didn't choose me.
There's really nothing that makes rejection sting less. It's a rotten thing to be told you aren't the right person, or you don't qualify, or you weren't a good fit, or you aren't the one, or you didn't try hard enough. Because the moment you put yourself out there for a college, or a job, or a life decision, you imagine yourself in the desired outcome. You picture your new dorm room, or new office, or growing belly and you start to believe it's already true. And so, when the news comes that your desires won't be met, that your dreams won't come to fruition, it's hard not to grieve the loss of the life you thought you would have. And that's the worst part of it: you have no control. All you can really do is accept the rejection.
Even if you do it in irrational ways.
Like how my mother hung on to my rejection letter all these years. It's still there, yellowing in a folder, waiting for me to make it something of extreme irony. I realize now that she wasn't really doing that for me, though I think she still truly believes I can somehow "stick it to Grinnell" via Oprah. She was doing it for herself. As a mother. Trying to do something for her hurting daughter when nothing could really be done. Which assures me that despite all the rejection I might endure in this lifetime, there's one acceptable upside:
At least some one is keeping my information on file.
