the repetition of rejection

moving up through the mud

Nov 03, 2024

Lately I’ve been remembering the framed photo of a lily pad that hung in the Family Gathering Room at the hospital. Located at the end of the unit’s hall — past all of the beeping and buzzing that oozed out of each individual hospital room, past the nurses station, past all the other nature photography anchored to the walls.

Side-note: If you’re newer here you may have missed that time me and my partner lived in a hospital for 32 days earlier this year while she was fighting for her life.

The Family Gathering room was always full of sunshine during the middle of the day. It poured in through the vertical hanging blinds, casting patterns across the couches. Sometimes I sat and watched nurses and doctors come and go from the skywalk that was within direct view from my favorite chair. Sometimes I’d watch birds fly.

Other times, the room filled and it was too busy for me to stay. Those were the times when families huddled around the broken coffee machine waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery. The times when nurses took their break and watched VH1 with the volume way too loud. The times when a spouse was on the phone with the insurance company. The times when patients in their gowns and wheelchairs entered the room because they needed a change of scenery too.

The Family Gathering Room was always empty in the middle of the night when I needed to use the bathroom however. Then, the room was dark with only the light of the TV. The vending machines would blink and flicker with their motion-sensors as I passed, lighting up the space just little bit more for seconds at a time. Sometimes I lingered and watched 10 minutes of HGTV or The Food Network before returning to my pull out couch.

I looked at the lily on the wall every time I came and went. A visual ritual, a promise that beautiful things like lilies have to grow through mud before they bloom. And we can too.

I’d tell myself…we can get through this. We’re going to get through this.

At the beginning of this week I wrote down my intention for the week ahead in my planner: keep moving through the rejection, get to the other side

Since coming home from the hospital I had been on a rollercoaster of trying to figure out the best way to stabilize my life and livelihood through work. I was already really struggling with figuring out where I fit after my AuDHD diagnosis just month’s prior to my partner’s hospitalization. I was surviving on gig work to give myself space and time to figure out the most accommodating life I could set up for myself. For the first time I was starting to truly accept what I needed to thrive within work — not just survive, not just mask and pretend, and definitely not enter my classic cycle of burn out.

I moved through the mud of rejection after rejection. Twenty-six nos to admin jobs, art jobs, non-profit jobs, etc. One failed full-time position with benefits as a Mental Health Technician on an adolescent eating disorder unit. And one withdrawn application from a job at a local high school that I really wanted to do, but realized it’d be an unsustainable environment for my nervous system. I started to take the rejection and the incompatible environments as signs that I am meant to return to self-employment and working from home.

I continued my gig work in the background while building the website and creating systems for myself. I refused to get discouraged when I sent out my launch email and there was not an immediate onset of Chemistry Calls being booked.

Instead, I saw myself as the lily — past the mud now and in the water, reaching for the air, almost almost there. On the brink of reaching stabilizing oxygen for the next chapter of my growth!

Thinking back to what I wrote at the beginning of this week and seeing what panned out in my new virtual assistant business, I feel like it’s safe to say that I am nearing the other side of rejection. I’ve collected two yes’s this week that I am SO excited about. Now, I’m officially working with three different clients within my business and supporting work that is meaningful and honestly such an honor to be trusted with.

The repetition of rejection is a sharp pain in the side. But the sweet sound of a yes, makes all the twisting roads worth it. Makes you exhale in relief. Makes you appreciate the journey even more than you thought was possible.

If you’re moving through rejection right now, I just want to tell you that I love you. And it sucks. And I’m sorry. But I’m also so hopeful about what is on the other side for you. I trust there will not only be a lily, but a landing pad.

You. I. We. We’re going to get through this.

With Love,

Jenna

You can think of these questions as an invitation to grab your journal, start a conversation with your coven’s group chat, or ideas to ponder when you’re out on your next walk —

What is your experience with rejection? In what ways have you moved through and alchemized rejection into something else entirely?
Where do you feel rejection in your body? How can you show that part of you more love and tenderness? How can you give it recovery time to process the pain and also encourage it to keep moving forward?

the repetition of rejection

moving up through the mud

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