Tired of Being Broke and Broken

Rejection is a hard pill to swallow; it doesn’t matter if you’re 14 or 40, heartbreak always ends the same way. Over the past two weeks, I applied for a position at a local alternative newspaper and last week, I got an interview. In between the interview and actually hearing the outcome of it, I broke one of my own rules: I’d put all my eggs in a single, proverbial basket. So ultimately, when it came time for said publication to tell me that they offered the position to someone else, I watched helplessly as my professional goals and personal life unravel rapidly.

As I’ve stated many times, I’ve been writing for the better part of a decade (actually, it’s a decade in September) and I love it. The challenge to be confined to a small space, but have the ability to convey emotions, opinions and ideas is something that I never tire of. Even when I was burned out on writing at 17, I found myself at Skratchcast and Urban Earth, within months of proclaiming my exodus. It’s something that I have built my life around.

Within the last year, I felt that having a degree in the field, I should actually make a run for it. Since graduating from college, I’ve run the gamut of jobs: record store clerk, bank employee, video store clerk, and production technician (whatever that means). So, I sent out resumes and writing samples to many of my favorite publications, eventually only hearing back from one, in the form of a rejection. But, being the optimist that I am, I soldiered on. Which leads us here: for almost 12 months, I’ve been pecking away, trying to find my place within the newspaper world and, still, nothing.

My recent rejection is just another corpse in the graveyard of failures. I guess I’m taking this one pretty hard because it seemed the most promising. I feel that these days, few people are really saying something of value, this is especially true of alternative weeklies. It would’ve been great to have the potential to scream some of the thoughts that I’ve had in my head since I was 15, but that’s not the way it’s going to be this time. I’m not sure if the person who they chose over me will fall into the category of apathetic, hip writer, or if they’ll be one of the few with valid feelings about the world around us.

Last night, I came to the conclusion that having the rug pulled from beneath you time after time is just cause to put it all away forever. I wrestled with my conviction about God. I see why people don’t believe in God. It’s easier to accept that the shortcomings in your life are either of your doing, or just bad luck. Throw God into the mix and, instead, you find yourself questioning whether God really cares about you if you’ve been suffering in one form or another since you were five.

There’s a lot that I’ve been through in my short life; many things that would’ve broken people long ago. I’ve always moved on, but after years and years of taking it, it’s beginning to wear on me. I’ve spent years being told that I will get my opportunity to say what I have say, and every year it drifts farther and farther away from me.

I don’t know if I will continue to write or not. I wish I could end this on a positive note and give a rousing motivational finale, but that’s not how real life works anymore. When your family depends on you and you let them down, it’s easier to sell yourself – and your dream – out for their benefit.

In my head, I keep going back to this memory I had when I was 16: this kid, who was probably about 12 or 13, told me that he liked my writing and that he was inspired to write because there were no other Filipino people he could look up to. Moments like that don’t happen anymore and only time will tell if they’ll ever happen again.