Sorry, rejection
“Hey hi sorry you were not shortlisted”
It’s been a while since I had to read texts like these. I stopped pursuing acting a year and a half back and spent that time getting a monthly salary, being in a position that had me play the role of the person on the other side. Was this a responsibility? What did I see it as?
During the course of the job, I always shuddered when I had to make rejection calls. I tried to be gentle when I had to do it, tried to be respectful and sensitive. I knew what it felt like to be on the other side but I don’t think I realized how much easier I breathed when I didn’t have to receive the news at the end of a hasty call or text that told me I was rejected. One which I always heard as “you weren’t good enough.”
Today, after nearly a year and a half I got rejected for a role I really wanted. I’ve been sitting with the feeling of that for over an hour now. An hour of replaying the last ten years of my life where I’ve been rejected in all possible ways.
You’re too fat.
You don’t have enough Instagram followers, sorry.
You aren’t pretty enough.
You were perfect but you’re not popular enough.
You need to lose weight.
You don’t have a camera face, great acting though. Can see the theatre training!
The worst method of rejection though, was ghosting. Knowing that he wasn’t answering my calls or texts because I didn’t get the part but knowing I would be in so much pain and desperation that I would convince myself, “just once more I’ll try…”
I watched a nice little montage video, cut to a melancholic melody with me standing in the middle; a lone and defeated figure with my brand-new haircut and hep clothes, watching all my life’s rejections flash before me and wondering what was the use of living with main character energy when maybe I just wasn’t good enough to actually be the main character.
Then I thought about how nicely the music was blending with the scene. How intriguing I looked with my hair swaying lightly in the wind. How the colors of the scenes from the past kept changing. And how steadily I stood there, despite teetering on the edge of being swept away by a hurricane.
Slowly my breathing steadied and one by one the rejections faded to black. I stood there in the middle taking in lungfuls of air, and I smiled. Knowing that I would face many more rejections and teeter on many-an-edge but I wasn’t going to tip over or step back just yet. This was the game. And I knew it from the time I signed myself over to art and being an artist.
I don’t know if I will ever make it in what the world considers as having made it. But it will be enough for me if I am able to pursue my art and make a decent living out of it while being true to myself.
I don’t feel so scared anymore. And soon the main character energy would fully take over, if I embraced it more and more. I’m going to take a fucking walk in the rain with a cute-ass umbrella and a spring in my step and I’m going to sing and dance and twirl and keep forging ahead.
Bring on the rejection.
