Rejection Letters

The real sign of blog neglection (and I may have just made this word up) is when I have to enter in a couple of different passwords because it has been so long since I have logged into this site that my password is no longer saved. So, after an embarrassingly long time away, I am excited to dust off my keyboard and start writing a little bit again.

I recently finished reading Marie Forleo’s Everything is Figureoutable (and I saw her speak! With Brene Brown!) and it really lit a spark in me to make more time for what I feel is important to me. And typically, I would be the first to tell you that I am already so crunched for time that something just has to give, and this blog just can’t compete with the other tasks vying for my time. But when I read this book, and there were many, many pages that stuck with me – I highly recommend this book – there were a couple of quotes that have yet to leave my mind.

Really, the concept behind these quotes is something that I have preached for years, but mainly to and about other people, when really I am the one who should take this message to heart. Every single person on this planet is busy, and if writing is important to me, I will make the time for it.

So, here I am. This is probably my favorite time of year because the weather is finally, finally starting to get cool(ish), college football is in full swing, I feel like I am finally really getting to know each of my students and getting into a groove with my schedule, and it is when I get to introduce my favorite writing assignment of the year. And I get so much energy from the process that goes along with this assignment.

 I know I have posted about this assignment before on F&F, but each year I look so forward to introducing the This I Believe essay to my students. It is a chance for them to gain some confidence in their writing skills as we move into tackling STAAR-style essays, and selfishly, it is a chance for me to get to know my students on a deeper, more personal level, giving them a safe space to open up about who they are and what matters to them.

And this year I took a little bit more time to set the stage – taking the time to complete some Brene Brown Core Values work, various writing responses and personality tests, and of course, sharing sample This I Believe essays. If you were to Google “This I Believe”, you would get thousands of hits. I always share a couple of strong essays with my students, and then I take the time to write and share my own This I Believe essay, explaining to my students that if I am asking them to be vulnerable and share their stories with me, I can model those expectations by sharing my story with them.

The share date snuck up on me a bit this year, so I did not get to spend as much time as I would have liked on my essay, but it was a really powerful moment for me to stand up and share this with my students, and I am hopeful that they found it to be just as meaningful.

I believe in rejection letters.

And the number 34 is one that will remain etched in my mind as I begin training for what will be my fourth full marathon. ‘Marathon’ is a word that causes many to cringe, and elicits many, “You’re crazy. I could never run that far”, or, “I don’t know how you do it” comments. I cannot deny that perhaps I am a little bit crazy, because to me, there is nothing better than being awake before the rest of the city, having the entire Rice Jogging Trail to myself while watching the rising sun paint stripes of pink and yellow and orange across the sky as I log mile after mile in the typically warm and humid Houston air, eventually catching a glimpse of other runners while on my second or third loop.

Running allows me to feel free while at the same time tapping into my competitive side, pushing myself to be better than I was yesterday. I have always been one to chase big goals, quite literally in this case, and a few years ago, I set a really big goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. Most marathons let you in if you simply agree to pay the entry fee – yes, we pay good money to experience some real pain – but the only way to gain entry into this particular race is by running fast enough.

So I threw myself into my training – running six days a week, wondering if I had lost my mind as I sat in bed rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and eating my pre-run banana and peanut butter after waking up in the early part of the 4 o’clock hour to get in some speed work before a full day of teaching, followed by an evening of coaching.

I swore off any food that I didn’t deem healthy. I said no to many things that might have caused me to sacrifice precious sleep. I even brought my own meal to my family Thanksgiving dinner after my dad assured me that he was absolutely not going to cater to my dairy-free, gluten free, some may say fun-free, diet. But he was out there cheering me on marathon morning all the same.

And on January 14^th, 2018, I ran a marathon time that would qualify me for this prestigious race. It was a day I will cherish for the rest of my life, feeling like the hours of hard work and sacrifice truly paid off. But just eight months later, the Boston Athletic Association informed me that I wasn’t quite fast enough to gain entry into the 2019 race.

There is a cutoff to the cutoff, you see, and I was 76 seconds shy. I let myself pout for a quick minute before tightening the laces on my Brooks and throwing my hair back into its signature braid, choosing to get back up and start the cycle all over again. And on November 18^th, 2018, I ran a time I had been training to run all along, again qualifying for the Boston Marathon, this time with an even greater sense of accomplishment knowing that I had not let this initial rejection get the best of me.

But when I checked my email on September 25^th, 2019, I learned that, for the second year in a row, my fast wasn’t quite fast enough. This time, though, I missed the cutoff to the cutoff by just 34 seconds.

It’s hard to put into words how that kind of rejection sinks in, knowing all of the work that I had put in to make this dream a reality. For the second time. Admittedly, it is a tough pill to swallow. To think back on every nailed workout on tired legs, every 4:30am alarm, every “no” I gave because I was so locked into achieving this goal. It’s hard not to wonder where I could have given just a little bit more.

I feel as though I could write a book about all that running has taught me, but as I took a few steps back and really reflected on the greatest lesson running has given me thus far, it’s perseverance, and the importance of showing up. In the dark. In the rain. In 100% humidity or in 30 degree winter weather. As cliché as it sounds, great things take time, and this big goal of mine isn’t going anywhere.

Tomorrow, I will wake up and tackle my next training run, keeping those rejection letters, that are taped to my bedroom mirror, at the forefront of my mind, trusting that with each step, I am inching that much closer to my goal.

Perseverance through setbacks and failure isn’t easy, but I think about how much sweeter the moment will be when I do get to run this historic race. And more importantly, I think about how much more equipped I am to handle any sort of difficulty that is thrown my way. It takes grit and determination to overcome any obstacle, and these rejection letters have taught me to always choose to persevere.

This was a very raw experience for me to share, as I learned of this “failure” just two weeks ago, and it is not something I had shared with many people prior to this, even with those who are very close to me. However, I felt it to be incredibly important for me to share, and unsurprisingly, I found the writing process to be helpful in giving me some uninterrupted time to process my thoughts and emotions as they related to this experience. It has been really easy for me to put a smile on my face and say that I am going to come back even stronger this next training cycle, while still feeling like all that I gave to this effort was not quite enough. That I am not quite enough.

Post Philly Marathon with my cousins

But through putting words down on paper, or Word Document, if you will, I was able to come to the conclusion that I really am in a place where I am grateful for the chance to keep fighting and prove to myself just how mentally tough I am. For the chance to better myself and not settle for anything less than my best, even if I have no idea what my best is.

I chose to share this story with my students because running is something that means so much to me, and I am glad to be able to share that part of me with them, but even more than that, I think perseverance is such an important word for high school students, especially freshmen, to deeply understand. They are going to face many obstacles and setbacks throughout the course of these four years – and beyond – and the harder they can lean into perseverance, the better equipped they are going to be to process them and continue to move forward. It has become common practice for millennials to give up when things don’t go our way (if I could insert an eyeroll emoji here, I would), but for students today, because they have so many other options and activities available to them at the touch of a button, it’s really easy to give up what’s not going well in favor of giving something else a try. I don’t think that’s always the wrong idea, necessarily, as it can take trying a couple of different things to find what it is you are passionate about, but giving up should never be the immediate reaction.

I may not experience Boston until I am 80 years old, when the time I have to run in order to qualify is slightly slower, but I can guarantee you that I will not let go of this goal. Because when I do achieve it, it is something I will be able to look back on the next time I hit a bump in the road. I know that much of who I am is because of the many ways in which I have had to persevere, and I am hopeful that by sharing my story with my students, they can grasp the importance of that as well.