I haven't looked at my project in a week.
Objectively, I know that one measly rejection is nothing. NOTHING. But psychically, it did something to me. Doubt was already creeping on me, but for the first time in my life, I seriously thought that maybe it was never going to happen. That maybe this idea that had sucked up so much of my brain space for over a decade was completely worthless.
Out of self-preservation, I retreated. I avoided the publishing blogs I once read daily. I ignored my journal. I played Breath of the Wild for hours on end, numbing my brain so that I wouldn't get sucked in too deeply into my thoughts.
A couple good things happened, though.
1) Someone at one of my residency interviews had said something about writing being a lonely thing. This came back to me recently, as I felt like no one around me knew what I was going through. In a moment of weakness, I told the Person about how I was feeling, even though he said he hadn't noticed any change in my mood at all. He couldn't understand why I was feeling so bad about one rejection, especially when we've gone through so many in our medical careers. But all the same, he was there to listen. And it helped.
2) For some reason or other, I ended up revisiting the BIG BANG blog I used to follow back in college. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Taeyang, aka mister "I need a girl", had gotten married recently. Looking for a fix of nostalgia, I started listening to the lesser-known "old" songs that had been playlist staples for my college years. Always, Foolish Love, Oh Ah Oh, Cafe.
The darkest time in my life was 2009-2010. My first year of college. My confidence tanked after receiving abysmal grades. I didn't know if my GPA was salvageable, or if I could ever make it to medical school.
Coincidentally, this was around the same time I was introduced to BIG BANG. And I am one hundred percent serious when I say that they helped drag me out of the hole I had sunken into. I've written before about what T.O.P meant to me during that period of time, but the long and short of it is, the story of how he made it lit a fire for me. That the surest way of ensuring something doesn't happen is if you give up. Even if it involves losing 40 lbs in 40 days in order to be deemed "slim" enough to join a Kpop group.
I need this break. It doesn't mean I'm turning my back on it all. But I need time to recalibrate. And when it's all done, I need to be ready to raze my darlings to the ground and build something stronger from the ashes.
