Fear of Rejection
from: “How I Became the Grant Queen and How You Can Too” by Mira Bartók
The fear of being rejected prevents a lot of women from applying for opportunities out there. This phobia reminds me about that old song we sang in the schoolyard when we were kids. I loved it because it was so gross and everyone who knows me knows that trapped inside this 48-year-old woman’s body is a twelve-year-old boy dying to put a frog down someone’s pants. The song goes: Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go away and eat worms all day. Down went the big one, down went the little one, the last one got stuck in my throat, choke, choke.
Do you really want to go hide somewhere and eat worms all day, choking down your words so no one else can read them?
Rejection? Who Cares.
Artist/writer Mira Bartók is the author of over 30 children’s books on world cultures, and her essays, book reviews and poetry have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Artful Dodge, The Bellingham Review, Kenyon Review, Tikkun, Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, and LINK Magazine. She was a finalist for AROHO’s Gift of Freedom Award in 2003. Her creative project—an illustrated memoir titled The Memory Palace, which deciphers a complex relationship with her schizophrenic, homeless mother—became a 2012 Notable Book and winner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography.
