on the way to the post office...
I’ve got my story ready to go. It’s in an envelope addressed to myself inside another envelope addressed to The Editors. Once I have the stamps I’m going to drop my baby inside a blue tin box and hope it reaches its destination safely. I’m terrified as if it were really my baby and I its mother. I’m letting it go away from me as if it was on its way to its first day of preschool. I’m terrified that it will be rejected and sent back, crying and covered in the mud thrown at it by the other children, the other stories that were better crafted, had stronger themes, clearer prose and plot lines, plot lines that traced their pristine preschool outfits from their witty first sentence to the impactful last line. My story would come back to me sobbing about the stories that were not only skipping preschool but were on their way to fifth grade and after a few glowing reviews would be on their way to the Ivy League. I’m terrified that I’ll be sent back to the drawing board yet again, dismayed that my creative writing teacher had lied about sending my story to one of the best literary reviews because she thought I had a chance. I’m terrified that one rejection will send me into the spiraling world of rejections until I am left a broken writer. I know I can handle it. I know that every writer gets rejected, even the best ones, even the ones that become Pulitzer Prize winners. But I want to dream. I want to be published. Maybe it’s selfish to want that, to want recognition for my work, but I want people to read it. Maybe it’s more selfish to write something just for myself and not want anyone to read it. Maybe the stories I write will affect someone somewhere and then they won’t have been written in vain and intellectual self-pleasuring. I just hope I’ll be able to do something with my writing instead of being subjected to a lifetime of holding a rejection letter in one hand with my other (figurative) hand “soothing” my ego.