In processing a recent rejection I couldn’t help but remember the cliche saying “When one door closes another one opens”. I cringed as the recording of these words replayed in my mind; I wanted it to stop. I had applied for a job that I thought I was a shoo-in for but unfortunately didn’t get. Via email the employer assured me that I was a “qualified candidate” and insisted that I should feel “proud” of how far along I came in the process for out of 400 applicants I made it with the final 15 to the last round. Reading these words I don’t feel qualified or proud. As tears began to flow down my face, disappointment swelling up in my chest, I lay in bed, unable to fully convince myself that I am not a complete and total failure.
Like most people I have experienced rejection many times before so it wasn’t as if I was not used to hearing “No” or “Not this time”, yet somehow this felt different. This time felt as if it carried the weight of every rejection I had ever known. It felt like a huge reminder that I wasn’t yet where I dreamed to be. It felt like a jab at my heart, causing a pain that in many ways I couldn’t understand how to articulate a description of said pain to someone outside of my body. To say that it hurt would’ve been an understatement. It didn’t hurt, I felt crushed.
Like many after heartbreak, I sought solace from those in my life that love me and see my greatness. Of course they assured me that I am indeed not a failure and that this only meant that job wasn’t for me and that there was another one, the right one waiting for me. I neglected to remind them that just moments prior they were encouraging me, assuring me that the same job that has now rejected me would for sure be mine. This in mind, I chose not to linger on old thoughts, for I knew that in both cases their intentions were purely genuine and had my happiness and best interests in heart.
Still feeling crushed after hearing their affirmations I began to write. I let all of my heartache and pain poor out onto the page as if writing was the only thing keeping me alive. Soon realizing that in that moment, it was, it hit me, “When one door closes, another one opens”. I didn’t get the job, and that sucks, but the jolt of losing out on it did get me writing again and I needed that. I had gone so long without writing for myself that I had forgotten what it felt like. I had forgotten that the reason I write, the reason I do what I do is first and foremost for myself. Writing is my healing. It is my safe space in the storm, my home and saving grace. For a moment I got so caught up with the chaos of life that I forgot that simple yet profoundly true fact.
So no, I didn’t get the job, and yes, it still stings a little, but the door that I needed open was my creativity. I needed to be challenged in order to see where my gifts truly lie. In shifting my perspective I was able to see that sometimes the door that opens after one has closed isn’t a door at all but instead a crack within ourselves that remind us just how powerful we are. There is beauty in even the most tragic of experiences if we are open to letting it flow inward.
While I am still on the search for steady employment, I now do so from a place of knowing who I am and what I am worth. I am a writer, and as long as I am writing, everything will be just fine.
“When the door closes on you, it’s because Life knows you deserve better…And if we really knew our worth, we would close the door ourselves.”
-S.C Lourie
Creative Wholeness 