Rejection hurts.

I'm beginning to hate lit mags* and their editors. Okay, hate seems like a really strong word. I will call it an aversion. So, why do I have an aversion to lit mags? I got my first ever rejection mail for a submission I made late last year. 

The submission was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I didn't allow myself to think of what I was doing and all the things that could go wrong. I didn't allow myself to overthink it, so I could not chicken out at the last minute. I didn't make simultaneous submissions because I didn't want multiple rejections. You see, maybe I’d already failed before I actually failed.

Maybe I'm a quitter. Maybe I'm too weak to try. I give up before I even start. I hate rejections. No, rejection terrifies me. At the same time, I'm scared of not trying, and that's why I hurled caution at the winds and submitted one of my works. This particular piece has suffered a lot of editing in my hands, and so I decided to let it go. I regret the moment I decided to submit it. 

Somewhere at the back of my mind, there has always been an awareness that I might not be good enough. The little voice in my head that says you are not good enough has now become a shout.

I suck at writing(don't say otherwise, I'm not fishing for compliments). I’m not exceptionally good at anything. In other words, I'm ordinary, mediocre. 

“Who's that?”

“Oh, it's just Bisi.”

Just Bisi. Nothing to see there. 

I wish I was special.

I can't sing to save myself, same thing with drawing and dancing. I hate cooking. However, I know people who are good at these 4 things, or at least three of them. Then there's me, zero talents!

I used to think I was smart. No, I was actually smart. I attended a Federal boarding school, and there was healthy competition among the students, but I always managed to emerge as part of the top 3 students in my class every session.

Well, university changed things. Unilorin has been knocking my head, and I can hear the echo that tells me there's nothing inside. I'm not even joking.

I’ve always written stuff. When I feel overwhelmed, I pick up a pen. When my imagination is working overtime, I pick up a pen. When I'm bored, I pick up a pen. I'm not that expressive verbally, so I write my feelings down. I've always been grateful to God for the ability to write. It helps me collect my scattered thoughts into coherent words. Writing gave me a voice, especially with the fact that I hate the sound of my own voice. Writing was a fun hobby. I enjoyed writing.

Until people started reading what I wrote. My friends read what I wrote, and gushed over how good it was. My Dad read what I wrote and said I wrote really beautiful stuff. My sister read what I wrote and said I’ve finally discovered my talent. My eldest brother read what I wrote and said it was really nice. 

Of course, they didn't want to hurt my feelings. I never really believed I was really good at it. I meannn, I have read really amazing works and it's nothing like mine. Until strangers started complimenting my stuff too. These people don't know me, and so they don't have any reasons to protect my feelings, right? Don't get the wrong impression. I didn't show these strangers my work. I could never. It's mostly when I send something I wrote to my friends and they repost it on their Whatsapp story, and said strangers say something nice about it. I became a little bit bolder.

I'm not exactly a social media person, of course, I use Whatsapp, and I keep it strictly with my good friends. But the bigger stuff like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter? I suck at those. My friend told me to open an Instagram account, but I refused. I also came up with a lot of good excuses for not wanting to create an account. Eventually, she created the account herself and sent the details to me. I didn't use the account for a year, and it was just there. 

Truth be told, I’m scared of being seen. I'm scared of putting myself out there. If I don't put myself out there, I can't get hurt, right? I guess this makes me a coward, but right now I don't care. I might never submit any of my work to a lit mag again. 

Rejection makes me feel really small. I hate feeling small. This rejection has made me see all my flaws in technicolor. It has opened up old wounds, and I'm bleeding again. I'm losing a lot of blood too. It has reminded me of all my insecurities that I have been trying to get past. I can no longer look in the mirror, and say, “You are HER, effortlessly”. I don't believe that shit anymore. Now, I wish I'd just kept my work hidden. 

I’m not going to act as though I don't know that it all boils down to self loathing. I struggle with self-love. 

“People need to extend the love that they freely give to others to themselves first.” 

I say that, and I genuinely believe it. 

But it's hard to love yourself when all your life, people have drowned their insecurities in you. When nobody actually sees you. When nobody hears you. When you have constantly had to ask yourself why you are always the problem. When people take from you, and nobody ever gives you. When other people's pain swim in you. When you have been crushed, stifled, silenced…

I didn't even know this email hurt me so much, but now there's a big lump in my throat that tells me I will soon tear up. I sort of thought writing this would help me clear my head. I was wrong cause now I feel even shittier than I felt when I started writing.

I've searched “How to deal with rejection” on Google. But I don't think I want to be dealing with rejection. I don't want to be rejected. I want to be accepted. I don't want to be passed up for a better option. I want to be the better option.

Lit mags: Literary magazines 

PS: I wrote this in Late February when I got the email. It came from a place of pain, so it's not all that.