well we’re still in rejection season y’all
"Thanks for your interest in the position at ____. We appreciated learning more about your background and want to thank you for taking the time to apply. Unfortunately, after careful consideration, we have decided to not move forward with your candidacy.”
I have received this exact email or one just like it over 100 times. OVER 100! I have applied to every fucking internship and job possible it seems. But that email, still stings. It stings even when I didn’t really get my hopes up. It stings even when I forgot what I applied to.
I am very sensitive. When I didn’t get to be editor in chief of my high school newspaper I literally wanted to kill myself. I convinced myself that was the end of my journalism career. I would never get into NYU (a school I ended up not even applying to), and I would NEVER get to be a journalist in New York.
This was just the beginning of my journalism-rejection spirals.
I am known among my close friends and family for freak out panic attacks. I will try to run away. I will move across the country. I will cut off all my friends, dump my partner, adopt a cat, cut my hair, destroy my room, delete my social accounts, quit my job and apply for 30 other positions. I am extreme in the worst way.
Now when I get rejected from a position do I do all of these things? No. But when I was denied from the Washington Post internship last year, I was convinced all things were over. I cut my hair. I cried A LOT. I had convinced myself that I wouldn’t get to work in audience journalism, and that I would be a failure and all of my friends would be successful and forget I exist.
So here’s what happened after I was denied from the Washington Post.
I interned at NPR, where I met my best friends. I interned at the San Francisco Chronicle where I was able to move to California, learn skills I likely wouldn’t have learned about at WaPo about local news and digital production. I met mentors who I still rely on constantly. I got a job at USA TODAY where I make over 60K. I moved to New York City. And most of all — I survived.
Thank goodness I didn’t get that internship! Because I fucking hate living in D.C.!
I did not die. I did not fail. I am not a loser. I am still a journalist. Just because this one opportunity did not work out, does not mean that I would never receive another one.
So if you are a journalist, you will probably get rejected. You might even get rejected from your “dream” job or internship. And you might be sad. You can cry. You can cut your hair.
But there will be more opportunities. Even your favorite journalist, even the most successful journalist has been rejected. You can also call/text/email/DM me and we can talk shit about whatever outlet denied you. Promise.
my fomo controls my life
I am so afraid I’m missing out, yet I sit in my apartment all day every day!
I love living in New York, but my FOMO is telling me to move to California. When I move to California, my FOMO is going to tell me to move back to NYC and then maybe to Texas and wherever else looks fun.
I want a partner because all my friends have partners and it looks really fun and I’m jealous. I want to experience every single life. I want everyTHING. I feel so paralyzed by everything I don’t have all the time. I want to enjoy what I do have, but these feelings of what I don’t have simmer in the back of my mind constantly.
I have around… $8000 of credit card debt! You know why? Because I don’t want to feel like I’m missing out. If everyone is doing something, I’ll probably do it too just so I don’t miss out on the experience.
I often think that I am above all of this. I am too strong to be influenced by pretty girls on TikTok or rich women on Instagram. But my drawers of Skims, Aritzia SuperPuff and Necessaire body lotion say otherwise.
When they finally create a pill for this, I will happily be a part of the clinical trial.