I see it. The big college bus stopped at its usual location a short walk away from my dorm hall. The last person is getting on the bus and I’m still a reasonable distance away and I know that if I don’t run, I won’t catch the bus and if I don’t catch the bus, I’ll have to walk for thirty minutes to get to class. Come on, I tell myself, you can make it. It’s just a quick sprint. But the sun is blazing hot above me and I can’t seem to find the will to run. I could do it, but I won’t. I simply won’t.
I’ve officially been rejected from all four organizations I’ve applied to since coming to college and honestly, it feels a lot like watching those busses slip past, knowing perfectly well that I could have done something about it, but I didn’t. Since the start of my college career, I’ve auditioned for an acapella group and applied to three different leadership organizations – none of which I got into. Trust me, reading those “Thank you’s” they put at the beginning of every rejection letter is getting exhausting.
The first rejection I received was from an Indian acapella group. I’d seen some videos from this group online and fell in love with how amazing they were and knew it was something I wanted to be a part of. I was also aware that I didn’t really have the skill set to be part of this group, but it was something I wanted to try for nonetheless. So when auditions rolled around, I stuffed my extreme fear of singing publicly into the little tote bag I carried into the room and sang my all time favorite – My Heart Will Go On – and Per La Gloria from my Italian book. I was surprisingly calm during my audition and my voice didn’t fluctuate too significantly as a result of my fear which felt good for a change; usually my voice comes out in a strained, shaky mess when I’m nervous, so this was a big milestone for me. Anyway, I honestly felt really happy after my audition because it was one of the few times I sang confidently in front of an audience. Sure, I messed up a bit on the note-listening section, but other than that I was happy with how it went, which is why the rejection that came a couple days after really stung. For the first time in about two years, I truly felt disappointed about something. Not because I hadn’t been rejected from anything (trust me, it was college app season, so rejection wasn’t anything new to me at this point), but because for the longest time I’d stopped caring. In a weird way, even though the disappointment hurt, I welcomed it back because it was nice to feel something again. Ultimately, I’m really proud of myself for forcing myself into that audition, and even though I got rejected, I see the whole thing as a relatively positive experience.
These next rejections, however, definitely did not feel as positive. A couple weeks after the audition, applications for leadership organizations rolled around and, eager to get into one, I filled out as many applications as I could. I was happy to get interviews from 5 of the organizations and made the terrible decision to sign up for all of them, when in reality, I was only truly interested in three of them. I had two interviews on Monday of that week and despite how nervous I was at first, both of the interviews were easygoing, and I genuinely enjoyed talking to each interviewer. During those interviews, I felt valued for my perspectives and it really felt less like an interview and more like a conversation, which is essentially what it was meant to be – a way for the organizations to get a feel for who we are so they could decide whether or not we belonged in their group or not. That’s why it really hurt not to get into any of the organizations – I felt like I was being rejected for my entire personality and it caused a damper on my confidence for a bit too. I felt awful because I’d slept through two interviews and if I’d attended them, I’d have had a better chance at getting into at least one, but I let those busses slip away. To add to that, I suddenly felt like my perspective and the way that I see things wasn’t valuable and I carried this new insecurity with me into my classes and seminars. I reverted back to being that same girl I was in my Sophomore year of highschool; too afraid to even raise her hand in class. Even when I knew I should speak in class, I turned the mic away, letting my groupmates do most of the talking and I felt my heart rate skyrocket when my Business Professor said she’d be calling randomly on students to speak. I hated how quickly I jumped back into these old habits I’d spent the majority of my high school career trying to overcome, but it happens sometimes. As soon as I realized the issue, I created little challenges for myself like “volunteer during Business 101 on Wednesday” or “participate in the large group discussion for Film by next Thursday” and slowly, but surely, making these little promises to myself helped me regain some of my ability to speak in class. Adding these challenges to the little to-do list on my planner helped motivate me to actually follow through with them. Of course, there have been times when I haven’t kept those promises, but it’s an ongoing process and that’s something I was forgetting. I suppose the one good thing that came out of all these leadership organization rejections is that the insecurity that ensued reminded me that my ability to publicly speak and be an assertive leader is an ongoing battle and didn’t just end with highschool; it’s something I need to continue to work on.
Overall, all these rejections have been a reminder that college is an entirely new playing field and through all this, I am an ever changing person. While in highschool, I may have been known as the girl committed to her extracurriculars, that reputation doesn’t just follow me into college; I have to prove it. I have to forge my identity out of the pieces of myself I brought here with me. I have to start all over. And I have to decide what it is that I want; do I even want to overload myself with a ton of extracurriculars the way I did in highschool, or would I be better off using that extra freetime on my hobbies, like my blog, my book, and maybe even on making a couple more songs. I haven’t really discerned what to make of these rejections yet, or which direction to take them in; whether I should use them to propel myself to try again or if I should take them as a sign to let go of any commitments other than my hobbies. What I do know is that I have at least the rest of this semester to figure it out and decide whether that big college bus is even worth catching at all, or if I’m simply better off walking myself to class.
