Road closed

My normal route home from work is blocked. A barricade with the words Road Closed plus workers and trucks make the reason apparent. It is rare that we know the reason when other roads are closed to us. To know why we received a no at that point in our lives for that thing. From marriage proposals to job interviews to a bid on a house, we get rejected, a road is closed, and we must speculate why, for the generic trite phrases often used don’t tell us what we want to know.

When I decided to take a break from college, I needed to get a job. Although I’m a fast and accurate typist, I flunked the typing test at the Mayflower Moving Co. I’d never had to line up forms in a typewriter, let alone do that while pretending to talk to a customer on the phone. That’s the only time I knew why I wasn’t selected. Probably like you, I received my share of thanks-but-no-thanks replies to jobs, to a potential new friend, to an idea, a dream. I have a stack of rejection letters from publishers for my ideas for children’s stories and poems. Some indicated they didn’t want to hear from me again. Even those that said I was encouraged to submit other proposals were still a no for something I thought I wanted very much.

I take my hat off to actors, who need to have very thick skin to keep going to scores of auditions annually. To artists of all kinds. To the unemployed who keep networking. The disappointments and the hurt can pile up so that we stop trying to find a path that might welcome us. Other areas of life can take over. I stopped drafting notes on ideas for children’s stories when my career took a different turn. When I lost that job a decade later, I started writing these weekly musings, and within a year I had a book. It doesn’t always turn out that way, but in retrospect, I’ve learned that something else always does open up. Sometimes on its own, then or later, or because I tried another door. That’s why I’m not following the detour signs posted to direct me home, but have found my own alternatives.

Marilyn