Soul-Crush

This week I received the most soul-crushing rejection yet. The one I've been waiting to hear about since last September. The big one. My golden prize. Rejected. After all this time. It was a thin blanket of solace that it included the note that it had been held so long, because it had been thoroughly considered. So I got rejected at the last minute. I waited all of that time. To be rejected. One of those moments where you just feel everything inside of you deflate. And it was sandwiched between two other rejections, so yeah. My poetry ego is withering. Especially because I haven't written anything in over a month now. I don't feel it. I don't feel anything. It's just not there.

I've been filling my time up with other things to keep my mind busy. This year has only become more stressful and upsetting and bewildering. Sometimes, it feels overwhelming. So I've picked up hobbies. I started kickboxing, like I said before. I love it, but part of me is so frustrated that I'm not in the shape that I was when I used to do karate. My kicks aren't as high, my endurance is nowhere near as long. I'm still Peter Griffin, wanting to go from nothing to Chuck Norris. It's probably also the competitive streak in me. I want to be the best. I want to do the best. I don't want to look like as big a weenie as I feel.

So I've also taken up running on the bike path. I only do it on days that I don't go to kickboxing though, so that I am fully-functioning in class. I keep a record on Strava, and I've been working to do better. My last post, I said it felt like I was only getting worse. My last run, I actually broke all of my personal records, so hopefully I'm finally building up my base. Besides those two things, I bike ride with my mom when she feels up to going. The stressful thing that happened this month deals with her, and I want to help her get through it with exercise, so we bike as far as she feels like and then come back.

And then there's gardening. I freaking hate it. But I have become OCD with it. I think it's because I can just blank out. My only concern is digging up the weeds and cutting out the trees and figuring out how many of those crazy, rapidly spawning lillies stay and how many go. I like to think I've made a pretty decent flowerbed outside of my house, but it never seems quite right or good enough. So I go out there and sweat to death and dig it all up and rearrange it. But I like hurting and sweating. I have no idea why except what I said before, that it gives you something to concentrate on. No worries, no stress, except about how your flowers look.

After everything with my mom, and family history, I've been looking for ways to keep stress low. Focus on other things. What's done is done and there's no going back. There's no fixing things. You just go with what you have and keep going.

Still, I have to get out of this poetry rut.  I have to write something, even though I feel trampled-on. Even though everything feels not quite good enough. I make it to the last round but don't place. It's all part of the territory. Get over it, ego. It just really sucks that I don't even want to read my stuff anymore. And my thesis starts a month from now, more or less. I hope Blas can resurrect my poetry soul.

I hope something can resurrect me.

I actually considered buying a journal the other day to pen my thoughts in. But as this blog title suggests, my handwriting sucks, and I hate it. So I decided against the pretty, leatherbound red journal and told myself that I'd write the gist of my feelings here and deal with the rest on my own. Sometimes I think this whole blog seems silly, but sometimes it also makes me feel better.

Sometimes I also wonder why I can't just write a poem about it.