So, I wanted to vent. And to share with you all here. Because I know you care. And you all have great uplifting words. And. I am feeling rejected.
First. I can do nothing about your feelings. You will feel as you feel. But I would hire you in a heartbeat. Just. like. that.
I want to insert something here first, before you continue on my post (if you do--uh oh. I am feeling rejected here.) There has to be a statistic that would be readily available on the internet of how many interviews we need to go on, before we land a job. I think I used to know, but it is lots and lots. Nobody gets a result after their second or fifth interview, I do not think.
But anyway, this was a useful post to me to read and to respond to, because I have been dealing with something similar because I am starting to live again after a long time half-dead. And like Rip Van Winkle, I am not the same person I was as before I went to sleep.
Everybody that posts regularly must know that I spent years in bed grieving my mother. And I am waaaay better, after 3.5 years. And grateful for it. There was a time I thought I would never feel better. But I do.
Well. 3.5 years in bed or the house does not do one good thing for self-confidence. Not to mention gaining 55 pounds of which only 25 pounds is lost.
I am going on the long train trip to a big city across country that has been in the planning stage for over 3 years. M cannot go with me and I am going alone. While I did a whole lot of traveling some years ago, I have made only two big trips since, both 2 years before my mother's death--that would be 5 plus years ago.
I have been reaching out by email to dance teachers, to synagogues, to therapists, etcetera, to try to put into place the support network I lack where I live (small city). The idea is that if I like it there, we will move for at least part of the year.
I am 10 years older than I was when I danced. 45 pounds heavier. My hair is silver/gray. I am on social security. The rejection--I play out in my head.
When they see me they will think: old lady. Who does she think, wanting to dance, still?
You see. I begin treating myself like a thing, not the treasure that I am. Pony. You are a treasure. We are our own treasures. What we are going through now is happening to HELP US REMEMBER THIS: That we are our own treasures.
It is funny. When I go to Home Depot, where I go several times a week, I do not put myself down this way. I do not put myself down here in my town. I feel confident. I do not put myself in anybody's head. They are entitled to their own thought about me, themselves or anybody. And I own mine.
And I am my own little flower. I am precious to me.
Thank you Ponygirl. I needed to remember that.
It is a terrible thing really, the JOB MARKET, when we put ourselves out as THE PRODUCT, in the form of offering our labor for sale. How in the world could it not be demeaning or degrading? But this is the society we live in. Women feeling they will be valued as commodities. Well. I am certainly past my pull date. Job seekers knowing that they will be valued or not as objects or in terms of their utility...rather than their personhood.
My sister very much wanted to get married a 3rd time. She found prospective partners (and eventually married one) on the internet. I asked her:
isn't the rejection hard? No, she replied
. You get used to it. She had somehow managed to turn off that tape in her head...the demeaning and degraded tape that I still play. Imagining what is in somebody's head, about me.
All I can say is I sat on hiring panels. And their was NEVER agreement about who to hire. I was always opinionated about who was the best, who was stellar, outstanding and so forth. I just knew who was the best and the brightest. The most dynamic with the most potential. And my colleagues always wanted the mediocre candidate who I felt brought not one thing to the table. So the thing is
this whole thing is subjective. It is all rigged.
So many people have not liked me, it is not even funny. Actually, that is helpful to remember, because I need to get over the idea that it matters. It is far easier and saner for me to assume that every single other person has the right to dislike me--so that I am grateful beyond measure when somebody does. Maybe that is what my sister knew. She could care less whether those men liked her. Until the right one did. (Actually, I think he is a jerk.)