My mother-in-law has a story about why my husband and I have not conceived a child. It’s my fault. It can’t be her son’s fault. It’s my fault because I’m fat.

I get it. Most fertility specialists will, and have, focused on my weight. Talking about it as a root cause instead of a symptom of my PCOS combined with sub-clinical hypothyroidism. My mother-in-law echoes the doctors with her mention of her friend that lost half his body weight by drinking smoothies for a month. I obviously don’t know how to eat or exercise. I am reckless and that has brought my husband into a marriage with a broken body, and that makes his mother sad. Yes, she has 4 grandchildren that she loves, but she needs one from everyone of her kids. We must be so empty without kids in our life.

Here’s the thing - it’s no one’s fault; it’s factors. We happen to have female AND male factors. That’s right. Her son is a factor just as much as me. Once again, she echoes doctors that downplay his borderline, and occasionally low, numbers. They wouldn’t be an issue if I wasn’t so fat. It’s my body, but your choice to focus on the symptom, not the root causes. There’s so many root causes. Look at them! Yet, they do not. The focus on one symptom - the size of my body.

I guess I’m the messenger – You have a body. It’s a body determined partly by genetics, partly by life, partly by things that feel unfair. It will change through the years until you are a soul separate from your body. Denying its existence doesn’t shrink it away. Why would you want it to shrink anyways? It serves a function. Some days it won’t serve the exact functions you want, but it still exists. Will you acknowledge you are muscle and bones and nerves and complicated brain pathways reflecting a history of challenges and victories? Please?

If you fade, you’ll have nowhere to hide from your anxieties, fears, and trauma that you place into your efforts to look like a photoshopped version of yourself. This fight to not exist with places another can feel exposes you to all of your feelings.

Will you ever be okay with taking up space in my world because I thought we had grown through this. Yet, we are children. Very much lost in troubled communication. How do you feel about that? I have a sense you’re not okay about any of it. You’re not okay.

I have been wary of people that don’t watch TV (or movies) since my late teens. At this point, I have judged people for their refusal to sit still for at least a half hour once a week more than I have not judged them for that. Yet, I did not predict that this wariness would steel me against a surprise rejection while interviewing for my next position.

The pathway to this rejection was paved with many of the decision makers commenting on how I was a great fit. I would later find out I was the person to beat, and I was beat out by the perception that I was not the “sure thing” because I asked questions. Now, my curiosity alone did not hurt my chances of securing the job. The types of questions – how the university supports their workers, whether grant pursuits are supported at a small institution, how do students involve themselves in the department, what are the ways faculty & students interact – made this potential employer think I wanted a bigger institution as my landing spot, which is false. Only one of those questions – the one about the grants – alludes to a large institution with a research focus, and it barely does that. All of my questions were designed to understand how they prioritize their students and the potential longevity of my career there if I decided to accept a position.

I could have predicted this rejection if I tuned into the alarms going off when I asked a question about current TV and movie viewing during an awkward dinner conversation. Both potential co-workers admitted they didn’t really watch TV. I knew it was a red flag but didn’t know how until I got the feedback as I was being rejected. I thought I’d have nothing to talk about with them beyond work topics.

If they were the type to tune in, even peripherally, to pop culture, they would have seen others succumb to their mistakes driven by misinformed assumptions and perceptions. Instead of clarifying their points of view with additional questions to their #1 candidate, they assumed their interpretation was correct and final. This has been the downfall of both reality and fictional TV characters. Entire series have been built around the idea that “my perception is the only valid one.” An entire season twist of The Bachelor came from the lead of the season thinking one of his final two was more of a sure thing than the one that had his infatuation. I’m talking about Arie’s season. He chose Becca because she was more confident in her feelings for him, but then Arie became the villain of his own season as he rejected his #1 choice to pursue his #2 because the feelings were so strong and distracting. You are the villain unnamed potential employer, and I was able to get over you pretty quickly because I knew you were naive. You would’ve known if you would have sat through multiple hours of reality TV that could be smooshed into 3 hours of highlights.

Okay, I see why you avoided that particular TV route, but you could have avoided so much trouble if you at least tried to see things from another point of view. Hope you’re happy Arie-in-University-form!

I’ve watched this clip from Amanda Seales at least once a day since she posted it.

During that time, I received yet another job rejection, but this one was different because it came from a potential employer that sought me out. They asked me to apply. I wouldn’t have applied otherwise. With that particular rejection, I felt the usual sting plus an added layer of betrayal. Am I that awful or are you that inconsistent? My confidants claim the latter, but I have a hard time believing it. If I had received an offer from that job, my bosses would have been heroes-turned-colleagues. That feels like a missed opportunity I messed up, but I don’t get to know the full story so I make up my own. I turn on this video. I apply break-up rules to the rejection email - the one who contacts last loses. Instead of replying to request feeback, I left it (minus the time I sorted all the emails from the potential boss and cried over how quickly things went from neutral “We’re still interested in you.” to “We’ve decided to move in another direction with that position.”).

I inconvenience myself because I want you to like me. I inconvenience myself because I think I can change your mind. I inconvenience myself because if I hurt, then maybe you won’t leave. I inconvenience myself because I’m so afraid of being an inconvenience to you.

The title of this post is a movie quote from Beaches that I think of often. I say it whenever I sense rejection to buffer my fear kicking in.

I said it as recently as this morning when a doctor seemed over my fairly regular visits to his office. The story I told myself – He was ready to reduce the frequency with which he had to deal with my questions and my general presence.

As a fellow curly girl like C.C. Bloom (played by Bette Midler), I understand the evolution of this quote. It firsts appears in childhood as “I hate my hair,” and then evolves to “He hates my hair” when faced with rejection as an adult. If you do not have the proper guidance, curly hair seems like too much trouble for a child. Why can’t I hop out of the shower and move on with my life like my friends? Why so many extra steps, planning, and money I don’t have? The war with the hair eventually becomes the war with differentiation as an adult. The thing that makes you stand out must also be the thing that is forcing this rejection upon you. You resented your curly hair habitually as a child so the thought that others resent it isn’t farfetched.

This thought is also safer than the other possibilities that may drive rejection. Your curly hair is a phenotype, a result of genetics. It’s not your fault, which is much better than the possibility that they hate your personality or dismiss your talent. That is personal. Both of those things have been cultivated by you. If your curly hair is not the problem, then they are rejecting YOU!

Oof. Typing that hurts my heart. I am regretting this post because now this quote doesn’t feel as fun as it did this morning.

I don’t hate my hair, and that doctor probably didn’t pay it much mind either. I hate swimming in a sea of rejection and wondering the directions each one sends me. I want answers. I also want to know which products you use if you have curly hair.

Me to my father as I walk away: “I just assume that you hate me.”

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Today I discovered why a timely email or text message means everything to me.

The past few years revealed the place where I will judge you the most - email (or text message) etiquette. I’m not talking about sending me a thanks email when I follow up. I’m talking about my reply emails sent with questions or to-do’s followed by silence. We were sending emails back and forth in a timely fashion and then nothing? What sort of system is this?! My most common distorted thought is “I wrote something offensive and don’t know where.” or “They’ve stopped responding. They never liked me in the first place.”

My husband hates when I spiral over what is not coming into my inbox. I don’t understand what’s so hard about responding within 48 hours. He doesn’t understand why this space on the internet houses my happiness. Heaven help him when I receive an email with a promised timeline for a complete task and THEN the silence comes. Please, please, please don’t tell me you’ll send me the link, the instructions, the itinerary, etc. tomorrow if there’s a possibility you won’t. You know how your life is set up. Get vague with it or I will send a “did it get lost in the Internet?” email.

I thought this was my thing I’d have to learn to tolerate and keep in check. I loved you if you corresponded quickly and efficiently with clear next steps. I became unsure if your response time was inconsistent and regularly non-existent. People would chuckle and shake their head at me when I’d admit the weight of timely correspondence in my world. My husband constantly asked me, “Why?! This is just people being people.” He’s not wrong, but I didn’t have a solution.

Enter an old journal from the early 2010′s - the height of my toxic romantic relationship pursuits. I still don’t have a solution, but I suddenly found the answer. I have this strong fear of being forgotten. You would think I would know this since I regularly tell my husband and friends, “I love you. Don’t forget I exist.” Give me a transcript logging the frequency of this thought, and I suddenly realize the chronic pursuit of being important, no, indisposable to others.

I want to be the loyal sidekick. I want to be the fixer you have at the top of your contacts. If you take your time to respond to my email or never respond at all, then I am disposable. I am not important or valued. I have been forgotten because whatever connection we had was a paper chain at best. That’s a lot of power for one email or text message. I’m not in a dial up world with that mindset.