Dear Cosmos Community,
We’re almost at **100** issues of this little newsletter! What do you want to see for the next hundred? Please take a moment to share your thoughts. I read every response and I”ll make changes based on what you share!
I got a major rejection last week. From who isn’t important! It was a writing thing, a kind of dreamy escape from reality on a hilly campus on the west coast. It was competitive, I knew that going in, and I didn’t think I’d get it, not now, not so early in my commitment to writing, but I hoped.
I hated that hope when the rejection came through! Hope made me upset, made me doubt myself, made me wish I hadn’t put myself out there. I blamed it on hope, but hell, I just needed something to blame.
I swore off writing forever, I contemplated entire other dreams for my life, which was hard, because writing has been the dream since I was a kid, and only now, in my thirties, have I tried to pursue it. There are many valid systemic and structural reasons why — my parents were immigrants, they don’t approve of careers in the “arts,” I worry too much about money, and writing life is more certainly a path to financial struggle than success.
I allowed these barriers to hold back my dreaming. Do you hear that? I allowed it. My agency matters; even if in the end that means I blame myself, it feels important to give me power in this narrative, for if I have the agency to hold myself back, then I also have agency to push beyond the barriers, to say fuck it, yes, things are hard, but at the end of the day it is my decision to write, or not.
I know that rejection will come for me again. In the writing world, the common advice is to aim for a number of rejections a year, until the odds even out, and you get an acceptance. That is not exactly motivating advice, but it is true, for writing, and also, for life.
I maintain firmly that it’s okay to opt out, to say, hey life, I can’t take rejection now, I’ve got too much going on, so I’m not going to make that dating profile, go to the bar, text my crush thing, submit my art to fifty fellowships. But if it’s fear of failure, of being told no via a generic email, of feeling the hours you poured into that application or art wasted, then notice it. You don’t have to feel anything for it, though resentment may stir, even rage. You don’t have to befriend it, extend it compassion, help it off the ground. You don’t have to do anything with it, if you don’t want to. I hope that is liberating, because so often the discourse moves from noticing to fixing to healing, without recognizing that we are not always in the position to do so.
I don’t think I’ll ever rid myself of my fear of failure or rejection. Not because I don’t want to “do the work,” but because I understand what it does for me (and what it doesn’t), and how deeply it is a part of me, of being human. I’m not friends with my fear of rejection, but I see it, and it sees me, and I allow us to co-exist. Maybe that’s all it’s ever asked me to do.
I have no idea how or why Pachinko Soo Hugh saw this Tweet, but I printed it out and taped it to my wall!!!!
With a rejection email in unread,
Karen, Editor of The Care Package
P.S. Speaking of not getting rejected, tell me what you’d like to see from the next 100 issues of this newsletter! I read every response, and I will make changes based on what you tell me :)
Community Conversation on Safety & Self-Defense for Asian Women
April 7 | Virtual | Tickets by Donation
Why might it feel hard to defend ourselves? What agency do we have over our own safety? We may carry pepper spray in our pockets, but protecting ourselves is a mindset that many of us are still cultivating. The Cosmos and On Her Own are partnering on a workshop where we can talk openly about the feelings that come up around defending and protecting ourselves. Through small groups, open conversation, and community co-creation, we'll uncover barriers and feel supported in our agency over our safety in light of anti-Asian hate and violence.
Tickets are donation based, with a suggested donation of $5-$10 to support this programming! Fifty percent of proceeds will go directly to The Cosmos Care Fund, a creative aid fund for Asian women in America.
Creative CAAre: Sustaining Your Mental Health & Artistic Practice is a series of free virtual/in-person workshops centering Asian American creatives, artists, and cultural workers in Chinatown, Manhattan and Flushing, Queens. Our vision is to create a safe space to care for your creativity and your mental health, with the support of community care. You will learn body awareness, somatic care techniques, and creative ways to care for your wellbeing.
RSVP below and click here to see the full calendar of events. You can RSVP for as many as you’d like, each is free!
This series is presented by the Asian American Art Alliance, facilitated by The Cosmos, and supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Special thanks to former Council Members Peter Koo and Margaret Chin, and current Council Members Sandra Ung and Christopher Marte.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate you. This week I will be applying to two more things I’m sure I’ll get rejected from and continuing to binge Bridgerton. See you next Monday!