I remember the first time I received a “rejection” WhatsApp from a prospective client. The moment I read her response it felt like the bottom of my heart was falling out.
I had put some thought-to-paper (or email at least) regarding party décor she wanted for a casual event at her house, and her simple “not what I am looking for” response left me gasping and gaping.
Is this then rejection? Creative rejection? Is it a real thing?
It’s not that I hadn’t received criticism in the past. The closest people to me know that I am open to criticism (on a personal and creative level) and I had received it in heaps and bounds. Yet it didn’t make me feel as … bottomless.
A part of me felt that I shared an inner most part of my being with this client. My creativity. And to have her cut me off with her rejective response was like someone taking a wet sock, swinging it 360 degrees and slapping me in the face.
In an attempt to rationalize my response to her WhatsApp, I questioned whether this was part of growing in the creative aspect of my life. Is realizing that it’s OK that, what you have to offer is not everyone’s cup of tea, part of growing creatively?
My creative side was left unexplored for a long time, so experiencing this form of rejection was unexpected and unfamiliar to me. To be fair, I’d left my creativity to fend for itself for most of my teenage and early adult life. Much like a stray dog, or an orphaned child, left to fight for its place in this world and to make sure it survives, even if it’s not the fittest.
Iv learnt to accept that not everyone will always like what I do; for some people, my creativity is not worth what they have to give up in order to have it. And that’s OK.
I need to make peace with that and remind myself constantly, that what I am doing is not wrong, it’s just not right for everyone. Its growing and remembering that, my stray, inner child does have a place, and to never let that child ever be quietened by the rejection again.
