I was kind of down on the way home today. Thinking about my (very few) experiences with my father. Specifically, when they took me to the hospital to see him right before he died. I was three years old and he was in the ICU. Children aren't allowed there because they're petri dishes of germs. They told me I needed to stay behind my sisters so as few people saw me as possible. Why, I wanted to know. Well, because you're not supposed to be here. You have germs adults don't and there a lot of sick people here. You could get them sick and they could die.
In the mind of a three-year-old, these various bits of information added up to me trying to kill my father because I was different. I didn't buy that I had germs any different than anyone else. I didn't get sick more or less than they did. They thought I was some sociopathic kid bent on fulfilling an Oedipal impulse (okay, I didn't know sociopath or Oedipus, but on an emotional level, that's where I went). I was intensely pissed off until I went into that room and saw my father totally zonked out on morphine. Then I was just scared shitless and had no problem hiding behind anyone.
This spiraled into a lot of other morbid thoughts during the drive home and I was pretty down by the time I pulled up to my home. I grabbed the mail and sifted through, looking for a letter I had been looking for for awhile, one with my own handwriting on it. BAM! There it was. I had queried JABberwocky Literary on THE TRIAD SOCIETY and here was the reply I had been waiting for.
They rejected the query.
And I felt a lot better. You'd think I'd be bummed. One more to add to the pile, but I felt quite good. It grabbed me by both my ears and pulled me back to the present. What's done is done and there's not much point in worrying over the frustration of a three-year-old. Plenty to worry over here in the present, like getting published. :)
Rejection, a much needed slap upside the head. :)
In the mind of a three-year-old, these various bits of information added up to me trying to kill my father because I was different. I didn't buy that I had germs any different than anyone else. I didn't get sick more or less than they did. They thought I was some sociopathic kid bent on fulfilling an Oedipal impulse (okay, I didn't know sociopath or Oedipus, but on an emotional level, that's where I went). I was intensely pissed off until I went into that room and saw my father totally zonked out on morphine. Then I was just scared shitless and had no problem hiding behind anyone.
This spiraled into a lot of other morbid thoughts during the drive home and I was pretty down by the time I pulled up to my home. I grabbed the mail and sifted through, looking for a letter I had been looking for for awhile, one with my own handwriting on it. BAM! There it was. I had queried JABberwocky Literary on THE TRIAD SOCIETY and here was the reply I had been waiting for.
They rejected the query.
And I felt a lot better. You'd think I'd be bummed. One more to add to the pile, but I felt quite good. It grabbed me by both my ears and pulled me back to the present. What's done is done and there's not much point in worrying over the frustration of a three-year-old. Plenty to worry over here in the present, like getting published. :)
Rejection, a much needed slap upside the head. :)