Standing at the end of the world.

Today I got my official rejection letter from the Bloomington Handmade Market. I've had a pretty crappy week this week, so it was not much of a surprise. Kind of like a punctuation mark at the end of a terrible, terrible sentence.

Oh well.

I'm not as devastated as I expected to be. Usually I will agonize over things like this, and over analyze why I might not have gotten in. Certainly my work looks a lot different now than it did when I was accepted last time (though I like to think it's really improved). And I did submit my Facebook page rather than a real website, since it's the only place I consistently update with photos of my work. I guess that wasn't the most professional thing to do. But all in all, I'm a little relieved. I could have used the money I would have made there, but at least now it's one less thing I have to worry about in the final weeks of my pregnancy. No fussing over signing up for Square, no scrambling to make a ton of work this month, no figuring out how to set up a newer, better booth display. I can focus solely on making work I want to make, and getting ready for this brand new creature I'm about to have. And given some of the other truly terrible things that have happened to me this week, this almost seems light by comparison.

I'm so glad I'm not completely broken up about this. Maybe I'm getting used to the idea that rejection is not the end of the world, and that there's always next time. It's nice feeling that way. Getting thrown into a major depression every time your work gets rejected can be a real energy suck. It's exhausting, and I'm tired of feeling like that. I feel pretty happy about my work right now, and the direction it's going. One little no is not going to stop me!

I'm going to leave you with a video posted by Emily Murphy on Facebook earlier today. It's so accurate, I was torn between LOLing and crying. Ceramic artists everywhere can probably relate.