Day 40 Lenten Meditation: Cry

I don’t cry often. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m a basically strong person, or because my bipolar medications keep me calm. But I feel the tears lurk, looking at the world’s situation under COVID-19.

Highly contagious with about a 2% death rate. That seems small — 98% will survive it — until you look at the number of people in the world. As of this morning, there have been 9100 deaths in the US, half in New York City. And there’s no end in sight despite sheltering in place.

I’m feeling discouraged, and I normally have faith in our ability to surmount nearly everything. I feel tears come to my eyes as I read the news. I don’t read the news much, because of this feeling of despair, the reality of the numbers which still conceal the human cost.

I can’t quite cry. If I could, I think the sadness would pass for a while, because crying is healing. Crying is like a good thunderstorm, giving us release from the sadness. A good loud cry is what I need right now. I’m not there yet.

A hilariously bad day

Yesterday was a hilariously bad day for a writer.

First, I received not one but three rejections. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about that, since I’ve done everything I could with that manuscript and query letter. It might just be that agents think my stories just won’t sell. I don’t know what to do, but I have to start thinking of the next step.

Then my blog got five hits from Poland, and I thought that my favorite Pole decided to read my blog for once (I am not his favorite American, alas) only to find out the referring address was a porn site.

So, yesterday’s theme: If I wanted recognition, it was not forthcoming.

I’m not going to apologize for wanting recognition anymore. But the desire makes for difficult days when I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Making it hard to hope

I just got a rejection less than twenty minutes after I handed it in. It didn’t “make her passionate”. She only took on “select clients”. Hopefully someone else would “take me on”. This is where the brutality of sending queries comes in, when the agent sends back something that sounds condescending. I could just cry.