Rejection: Dealing with it (or not)
I'm gonna try my hardest to keep this one short but sweet (although it may end up sour).
The one thing I don't ever remember being prepared for throughout my entire degree, was rejection. There's no handbook, no step by step guide, no lecturer that will ever teach you how to deal with it - you just do.
My 9-5 friends and family have never quite understood it. I'm not talking about the "send your CV and wait to hear back - or not at all" type of rejection, I'm talking about the "I've got my uniform and just as I'm about to put my name badge on - they swipe it back" type of rejection. The only way I can ever describe the type of pain and rejection I am talking about is by putting like this. Imagine your dream employer gets in touch and tells you they want to hire you. They show you a mapped out plan of your brand new office space, where your desk will be and who the first client is that you're going to be dealing with. You've just walked through your brand new, sparkly office door, you're about to take a seat on that shiny new leather chair - which looks SO much better than any other office chair you've ever sat on - and poof, it's gone. You're employer changed their mind, they've packed up and left but you're still there waiting and they aren't coming back - that's how it feels.
Often what'll come after this type of rejection is the supportive and inspirational quotes, "Onwards and upwards!" "Everything happens for a reason!" "As one door closes, another opens!" And they're right, of course they're right - I know they bloody are, but what they don't understand is that I never wanted that door to close. I had the key. I don't want to unlock another door - not yet anyway.
For me, this only seems to of happened to the big, dreamiest of dream projects. This year alone I've lost a festival and fashion project; both big scale, both big dreams. The worst part of it is that each time I've heard the bad news, I've been sat in the exact same coffee shop - ugly crying into my soya latte for a good half an hour whilst people awkwardly stare from all corners of the room wondering what the bloody hell is going on. And it stings, it really does. I know I'm probably on the higher end of the dramatic scale, but that's only because I put so much pressure on myself to do well, like I'm sure many other illustrators do.
I started this blog post a week ago, immediately after losing what was one of the biggest projects I had ever been asked to do, and whilst I weeped into my keyboard, moped around friends and family and took to twitter for moral support from other creatives (which really helped by the way) I've learned something (hallelujah) about myself. I DON'T READ THINGS PROPERLY - this is important. If you have a golden email arrive in your inbox about a dream project, look out for certain words. POTENTIAL project. We are CONSIDERING you. It's like my brain erases these words from sentences and so I get overly excited and create an entire narrative in my head. Calm down. This can help ease the sometimes inevitable disappointment, but if like me you've worked for months on a project to then have it cancelled I'm afraid I can't think of any cure except time. Lots of time, drawing and remembering that you are great and that it's no reflection on you.
The best thing about continuing this post a week after it was originally written is that my hyper positive, incredibly supportive friends, family and twitter buddies were totally right, "As one door closes, another opens." (God I hate that phrase). I got another golden email, and this time I'm staying away from that coffee shop.