The Day My Daughters' Elementary School Went on Active Shooter Lockdown

The horrible, heartbreaking events that have occurred in Texas have brought to mind a memory of one of the most frightening days of my life, as a parent. 

My girls were in Kindergarten and 2nd grade. I was just about to leave to go pick them up when I noticed my ex-husband was calling me. His voice was strained though he was trying his best to hold it steady. He asked me if I'd heard what was going on, if I knew that the school was on lockdown due to some kind of unspecified active shooter situation. No, I hadn't heard, and of course, I immediately became hysterical.

He raised his voice at me in that same strained, steady manner, demanded that I get my shit together immediately and keep it together because me losing it was the last thing anyone needed.

I tried.

He explained to me that there wasn't anymore information available, but he ran immediately to the school. when he heard. The police had it barricaded off, and he said he saw officers in tactical gear storming into the school with assault rifles. The only thing the police on site reported was that children were going to be bussed to the middle school, and all the parents needed to go there.

I was ready to throw up because...that reminded me too much of what I'd read about the aftermath of Columbine, how parents had to wait at the middle school for their children to get off the bus.

I fell to pieces. He told me to stay where I was. He told me that he was on his way there, and that he would be the one to collect them. My heart turned inside out. I knew exactly what he wasn't saying. If something had indeed gone wrong, he was going to be the one to face the news first.

In the context of my ex-husband, he's always been a less than stellar father, pretty much lackluster, uninvolved, more wrapped up in his own mess than anything else, but the stress and reality of this situation was enough to make him snap his head up and be a father, a man. That, in and of itself, was frightening, too.

Of course, I got in the car and rushed to the middle school. We were there for several hours, and there was no further information. Finally, the busses began to arrive. And my little girls got off and ran to me, to their father, sobbing in confusion and relief.

In apartment complex beside the school, a man had gone in and shot his ex-wife, his mother, and authorities were able to be alerted of his would-be plans to storm into the elementary school and murder his children. Officers had immediately rushed to the scene, protected the school inside and out. They were able to intercept the man and shot him dead before he could carry out his plan.

My daughters described how one minute, everything was fine and then the next, everything fell apart. They announced a lockdown, but they didn't do the things they'd been taught. Police officers came running into the school with big guns, shouting at everyone to hurry, to follow them. Everyone in the whole school was rushed into locker rooms. Police officers with their big guns stood outside to guard them. Everyone was crying, they said. Everyone was hugging each other. Some of their teachers were crying, too. Their teachers kept telling them over and over how much they loved them. No one knew what was happening, they said. Everyone was just so afraid.

I will be forever grateful to the police officers in our town with how quickly they reacted, and just thank God that somehow, they received this news not a moment too soon. 

The Waiting.

 Being patient and enduring change. These are two things I've never been particularly good at. These are two things that now practically define my life. 

At present, I'm waiting. 

After one writes a book and seeks to see it published, the waiting is all there is. Submit queries. Wait for replies. Endure rejections. Submit more. And wait, wait, wait. 

 And then, the day comes that a publisher, and then an agent, request your full manuscript to read. What a miracle! So you hurry up to give it a final polish and then you hurry up to hit send and then...you wait.

For months you wait. Sixty days, ninety, a projection, at best. It may be sooner; it may be later. 

The waiting intensifies. 

You teeter on the precipice of everything and nothing...literally. 

You're waiting to receive that fateful email. The email that will say, yes! Or that email that will say, no. There won't be any in-between. And there's no way to know. At this point, it is literally out of your hands and into the hands of an unknowable stranger who either will or they won't. You're on the verge of getting a proposal, and you're on the verge of being dumped. Anything could happen. 

And all you can know in this interim is that there's no way you can know anything. 

You may even find yourself turning to the tarot to try to sneak a peek ahead. But even this is a fool's errand, something you do on your most desperate days to try to cope with the awful void of the unknowable unknown.

In this in-between season, there are days that are good, days that are bad. 

On the good days, you're full of hope; a blinding, aspirational, nothing-can-stop-me-for-this-is-fated kind of hope. You re-read your manuscript. Your collective words bring involuntary smiles to your face, over and over. This is it, you're certain. This is, enough. The grand enough. It will be accepted, embraced; it will be planted. It will grow, it will flourish. You're going back to the Big Five, oh yes, and this time, they will say, welcome. And there'll be a future, a viable future. You close your eyes and imagine what your novel will be like when adapted to the screen. You indulge in the wayward fantasies of listening to songs on the imaginary soundtrack you've created that will accompany the most meaningful of scenes. Yes, sometimes, there are good days. The infinite is the absolute, and the inevitable. You count forward, anticipating... four more weeks; six more weeks; three more months until... I can breathe. You refresh and refresh your inbox hoping for an earlier-than-expected response. You see nothing. But you're undaunted. Maybe tomorrow, you affirm. Or maybe not. But when that email hits, its going to be good news, the best news. 

But then, all the more frequently, there are bad days. You're full of uncertainty, the most dismal of all foreboding. You re-read your manuscript. Your collective words are cause for you to cringe. Where did those little damned little typos come from? Didn't you edit this until your brains practically liquified? What a shame. It's too late now. And...what even is it that you think you've accomplished here? Why in the living hell did you think that attempting a nonlinear narrative, something you've never before tried, was a good idea for your first novel? Do you even know how to write this or did you just... expel this whole thing as if it were an involuntary regurgitation? 

Yes, those bad days... all you can believe is, this isn't enough. It may never be enough, because you may not even be enough. No one will accept it. It will never be planted. It will never grow, never flourish. Forget where you managed to land between 2014-2016, four Big Five imprints; you're never going back; you're never going anywhere. There is no future. And all else pertaining to the good days aren't daydreams you can even bring yourself to indulge. You're sick, simply sick with how inadequate you are. And you drown. You avoid your inbox but succumb to the overpowering compulsion to hit refresh anyway. You hold your breath. And when you stare into the void of nothing, you're almost relieved. But then, haunted. Maybe tomorrow, your inner voice laments. Or maybe not. But prepare yourself for how you're going to prepare yourself, because... when that email hits, it is going to be bad news, the worst news.

And such is the rhythm of my life right now. I am uncomfortable. But I know I need to get used to being uncomfortable. I know I need to work a dialectical on this experience because the actual truth is probably a combination of both extremes: no is as likely as yes. No doesn't mean never, just not now. Anything can happen. This process is as nonlinear as my narrative. I know I am a good writer who has written a unique story and I have grown to a point of being confident in that. 

I need to embrace this sense of being uncomfortable because... the beginning is only the beginning. Even when I get an agent, get signed with a publisher... that's only the start of the journey. There is but more waiting ahead of me. More hurrying up to push ahead and then...pause. Sit with uncertainty. Sit with knowing that the only thing I can know is that I know nothing. 

I am uncomfortable. And yet... this state is a gift. It is only when we're faced with "uncomfortable" that we're challenged to grow. 

No matter what, in the end... I am going to come out stronger, with more wisdom to share. 

God is good, all the time. He knows the plans He has for us. Count it all joy when faced with struggles, for this is when He grows us. 

Yes, yes, and yes. Here I am, Lord, okay? I will move through my experiences and embrace, accept my feelings and thank You for giving me the strength to face all things, through You. 

Amen. So mote it be. And... ready or not, I'm ready. Or not. 

On Loneliness: My Brief Return to Social Media

 As I write this, I have to say, I am struggling with loneliness in a way that I haven't since... I can't even remember. 

I am someone who is comfortably alone, by nature. Give me my husband, my children, and I am happy and fulfilled. I've been on a social media blackout for almost three years. By virtue of knowing that planting a manuscript is going to inevitably yield itself to a social media presence, I've put tentative feelers out, as the entity that I am under my penname. 

It only took a few weeks on Twitter to make me feel as if my spirit has been poisoned. 

There is somewhat of a mystery about myself that I've never solved. Fortunately, knowing what I know now about the peculiarities in the ways that I am wired, there's a context...this mystery of mine isn't at all uncommon for those on the spectrum. But making and maintaining friendships has never been something I've been able to consistently accomplish. I may start strong, make a connection, begin to form a relationship, but at some point, it is inevitable... I am going to run out of energy. I am going to withdraw. I am going to hide, leave, exit, vanish. It is just what happens.

I only have space in my relationship circle for one best friend at a time... and for me, now, that's my husband. My daughters are like little natural extensions of myself. Otherwise? It just isn't there. No matter how hard I try to make it be there, it is impossible.

So my little experiment with Twitter. And its subsequent soul-sickness. What can I say? It was just so much noise. Clamor. A din. Thousands of people hollering into the abysmal void made up of all the other thousands of people hollering. Attention, attention! Pay attention to me! Validate me! Endorse me! Co-sign my delusions! A million different forms this took, but it was all the same thing, over and over and over. Some kind of game. Some kind of vicious cycle where the more you get, the more you want. 

It gave me nightmares. Nightmares of being trapped in a tiny room with these thousands of people in physical bodies, all shouting up and out and at one another until I felt I had gone deaf. Nightmares of all these people who had passed on in tragic ways who were as yet from beyond the grave still clamoring for attention. 

Oh, God...the desperation. Tenth level of hell desperation. At full volume. A skipping CD.

And it was addictive. I got sucked in very quickly. I found myself on this wheel. Running and racing and throwing up my own voice. Every thought I had, I rushed to post it. Every slight bit of joy I experienced, I had to make a tweet. 

It started to make my skin crawl when I considered...normally, the first person I want to tell anything good, bad, or indifferent to is my husband. But even within a few weeks, the first person I wanted to tell anything to was EVERYONE, and... it was unhealthy. Very unhealthy. 

This is how people ruin their lives, get sucked into slippery situations that end up wrecking cherished relationships. 

It's gross, honestly, is what it is. I felt like I was betraying...everything. Or at some point, I inevitably would. 

So I terminated it. Boom. Done. I'm backing out, backing away. I just can't. I shouldn't. And furthermore, I don't want to. 

My manuscript is now with an agent, miraculously, as well as my publisher. Time is going to tell me a lot, in these next several months. Even if nothing happens...I'll at least know, that what I bring was enough to garner interest in a publisher and an agent in reading my full  manuscript. This is enough of a tiny flame of hope to keep going. Even if nothing pans out with either, I can know...something is surely going to pan out with someone, at some point.

And in the interval, I need to just keep on writing. This thing just keeps becoming more and more vibrant and alive as I bring it into being. It exists. It is going to exist. I just have to do as I've always done: keep moving forward.

And so, I must detox from this experience. Shed this superficial feeling of loneliness because I became dependent that quickly on instantaneous, round-the-clock validation, attention, worship. This feeling isn't real; it is facilitated. Everything about that experience made me withdraw from my own real life that I love and get sucked into this unreal simulation in which all of my energy was being fed into the void, into being just another one in a thousand voices screaming just to be heard. 

I don't need that. 

In the event that my future agent/publisher requires a Twitter, I am going to operate under specific guidance as far as what's necessary for promotion of the book, and leave the rest. 

And meanwhile... I'm going to keep writing. Keeping writing is an affirmation of faith in a future that only God knows, but He has promised me, for He is a God who keeps His promises. 

Christeopaganism & Me

 I'm procrastinating right now on writing the next scene in my third book because it is a biggie...it's the scene that in large part is the cornerstone for the whole series, so...no pressure or anything. 

Anyway.

I thought now might be a good time to unpack my spiritual beliefs. 

I wouldn't have any spiritual beliefs at all if it weren't for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which gave me permission to understand that I do not have to fit myself entirely into any box in order to have a relationship with a Higher Power. AA taught me that I could create my own conception of God.

So, that's what I did. That's what I am continually doing in a process that is evolving with me as I evolve in my own journey in sobriety, my own journey as...well, an embodied spirit on this temporal plane of existence. 

I discovered that there were parts of the Old Religion that suited me as well as parts of Christianity. And so, cafeteria style, I've just been picking out what resonates, and discarding the rest. 

This works well for me. However...I don't know how well this is going to work for me in the world, as someone who is (ready or not, y'all) soon to be coming out with a book series, a platform, an identity as it were (albeit one intentionally cloaked in anonymity) that will be evaluated, consumed, inevitably rejected as much if not more than it is embraced. And that is fucking...overwhelming. 

Everyone is SO polarized and angry right now and believe you me, I get it. There is a right to this anger, a righteousness to it. 

But I'm just...at this point...just over here trying to be myself, to whatever degree this is possible. AA has taught me that as a recovering alcoholic, I have to cease fighting anything and anyone if I'm to  maintain my sobriety. Resentment--whether it is at people, places, things, or some combination thereof--is a toxic tincture that, if consumed, will be my end. 

But yes, the polarization. I'm terrified of it. I'm not going to be anyone's particular blend of tea, I'm afraid. For those on the right, I know I'm going to seem like too much of a leftist. For those on the left, well, I may be discounted as someone who is too aligned with the right. 

So I thought that perhaps a decent use of this moment that I'm not presently making the technical highest and best use of would be to parse this out, before it becomes any kind of issue. 

Here is my deal, as best as I can describe it:

I identify as both a Christian and a Pagan. This kind of boils down to the fact that everything in Nature is, to some degree, comprised of masculine and feminine energies. It takes both masculine and feminine energies to create, nurture, sustain, and propagate life. This is just as true for humans as it is for all creatures and plants. The manifestations can vary. And for the moment, I'm not factoring in the very viable and real existence of the nonbinary and undefined; I'm speaking in terms of the binary, the dichotomy, for my own illustration here. Please don't think I'm discounting this real reality; I'm just parsing out a challenging thing for me to parse out. 

But anyway, yeah. I believe in a divine masculine and a divine feminine, because the foundation of the past, present, and future of life reflects these realities. We all carry within ourselves a continuum of these energies, and it is beautiful to see all the myriad of unique ways these express themselves within all people. 

Christianity: I find a lot of digestible, palatable wisdom in the Bible. I'm a person of words; there are a lot of words in that thing. A lot of them that contain wisdom that I enjoy meditating on, using as a vehicle to understand who God is to me better. There are a lot of good directions that I find that this wisdom points me in.  I can read this religious text, I can consider its contents, I can find meaning therein. The shittier parts, I just ignore. I don't accept them as part of my reality. I don't have to. My Higher Power is my own to conceive of. I take what's relevant, and I discard the rest.

Paganism: I've always connected deeply, ever since I was very young, to the energy of the divine feminine. I've always felt it thriving and vibrantly alive within me. I cannot imagine any Creator God without also attributing reverence to the Mother Goddess who is Creation itself. Do I believe that God created the heavens and the earth? Maybe. But this isn't the alpha and omega--perhaps He did breathe that life, but then, that life went on to live, and just look out the window, step outdoors, and behold the miracle, the beauty. Consider in that litter of baby bunnies or puppies the replication of life going on, life persisting and flourishing forward. Maybe God did create life, but the Mother Goddess perpetuates it. Maybe God did make Adam and from his rib, make Eve, but...the two were as one. Life itself is created from masculine and feminine. Without one, the other wouldn't exist. I think about this. To me, this is truth. I can hold fast to both and know, this is all of the everything that is, was, and ever shall be. It's very powerful. 

I have embraced the divine feminine as the essence of what defines my gender identity and expression. I remember this discussion of gender identity and definition on an autistic women's forum once upon a time and how I found myself describing me as someone who was more so feminine than female...someone who was a manifestation of feminine energy in the same was as a tree, an animal.

 I feel very full of the instincts of divine femininity...I'm interpersonally compelled toward being very passionate about being pregnant, bearing children, feeding, nurturing, bringing up those children in the same way my sweet mama rabbit becomes when it is her time to bring her babies into the world. I've always been happiest when my energy is focused on turning my house into a warm, comfortable home in the same way my sweet mama rabbit pulls out her fur and arranges her straw to make a nest for her young. I like taking care of those who depend on me. I love cooking and cleaning for them. It is simply what brings me joy. It is simply an expression of who I am, how I identify myself in this world. 

Here's where the line is drawn, however: JUST BECAUSE THIS IS MY PATH DO I BELIEVE WHATSOEVER THAT THIS SHOULD BE ANYONE ELSE'S. 

This is what pissed me off to no end about these self-appointed representatives for Christ and the whole thing. They love sitting on high horses and puffing themselves up as righteous and making a big show of informing anyone who doesn't do exactly how they do that they are pieces of condemned shit who are going to burn in a lake of fire for all eternity while they sit up in the clouds, sipping nectar, and dumping the occasional bucket of gasoline down on them for kicks. 

Ah, yes...resentment is the number one offender, so I'm reminded. I'm not entirely free of resentment; this is one I'm still working on. 

This resentment, as it were, ate me up so bad that it was literal decades of my life that I spent not giving Christianity or the Bible a chance because these assholes and their ilk were all I felt I ever needed to know about this religion. It was only after several years of sobriety in AA and the encouragement of my sponsors as I worked through my resentments that they pointed out a particular line in the Big Book: be quick to see where religious people are right. 

Well... I can't say I ever got to that point, but when I met the man who became my husband... my mind opened a little bit more. I remember going on three or four dates with him and falling all at once in deep like with him. He was handsome, and he was smart, and well-read, and open-minded, and just such a cool person. He was even a nudist! I was like, hell yes! This is my soulmate. 

Finally, one evening after we were well in our cups (this was pre-sobriety), he finally just blurted out something that made me feel like I was coming undone with abject confusion...this amazing, wildly attractive, interesting as hell person I really, really dug...had just confessed to me that he attended seminary, he was an ordained Baptist pastor for a number of years before stepping down and...yeah. He wasn't just a nudist, he was a Christian nudist. 

I felt like I'd been had. If I had known ANY of this at that time, bygod, I would have deleted his message so hard he'd have felt slapped in the face on the other end of his phone. 

But I'd gotten to know him...before I knew...that about him. And for the first time in my life, I'd met someone who was a full-blown Bible believing Christian (he has a fully parsed out theology where Christian Nudism is concerned, too) but wasn't a hypocritical piece of dog shit. I had to take a deep breath after learning this, but I found...I still liked him. 

Fast-forward into my first several years in sobriety, my working on resentments, this person who I now loved, who loved me, and who never demanded or expected that my religious beliefs conform to his...who held some conservative points of view here and there, but respected in a hands-off way where we differed...one day, I finally just confessed to him all the bad experiences I'd had, what I perceived his religion to be like, how I was sure I had nothing for it...but at the urging of my sponsors in order to get over my resentment, I asked him if he'd share with  me what it really was all about. 

I remember how he got very quiet and asked if I was sure, wanted to make sure I wasn't just initiating this as a means to make him happy, because...he liked me just fine the way I was, and I didn't have to be like him to be liked by him. 

No, no...I insisted. Just...lay it on me. My mind is open. 

And so, he came over one night and he brought his Bible. And the first verse he shared with me was the one about the Proverbs 31 woman. 

This shit completely blew my mind. 

The whole time I thought that to be a Christian woman at all was to be a vapid fundie doormat with no agency of her own (because, yeah, thanks self-appointed representatives)...but the woman in this verse was actually really different than anything I'd conceived of. This woman was the original boss babe. Yes, her energy was focused on her family and home, but she was industrious af. She got up at the crack of dawn and worked herself hard, getting so much done. She made major purchases and produced goods and services and sold them. She kept everything in order and maintained control. I was really inspired. This really made me want to learn more. 

And so, I learned. Jesus Himself wasn't anything like all these fools painted Him to be. No, he was the original revolutionary. He was so revolutionary and committed to social justice and equity that He was put to death for it. My favorite of His moments I think was in Matthew 21 when He and His buddies were walking around and He was hungry and spied a fig tree and was like, ah, yes, thank goodness, I'm starving! But when they came upon it, they discovered it had no fruit and He used His divine power to set the frickin' thing on fire because he was pissed! Like, couldn't He have used that divine power to, I don't know, make some fruit appear? I mean, surely, but instead...He hulked out like the demigod He was and just roasted it! I remember laughing outloud like, Yes! This is so fucking relatable!  I'd have done the same thing!

And perhaps the best part of all...in Matthew 23, he clapped back so hard at those people who made a big show of going out and hollering prayers in the street making sure everyone could hear and see them and know how righteous they were. He was like, yeah, no. That's stupid. Go into a closet and pray where only God can see you. When you do good things, don't let anyone know it; what should matter is God's approval, not getting the old school equivalent of likes and follows. 

It hit me so hard: the same people who drove me as far away from this faith as I could have possibly been driven were literally the same people that Christ Himself would have stomped right up to and snapped, Y'all...just kinda stop. 

So... I found my home here, too, as well as I found my home in the Old Religion. 

And as for me and my Baptist Nudist ex-pastor? We married in 2019. At our nudist community. In a state of Nature. By a Christian Nudist pastor who heads the church there. Hubby is on track to take over pastoring of that church in a few years, too. We're both completely who we are, two very different people, but yet within those differences, there are some crossover similarites. There's a part of him that's just as wild and naturey and free-spirited as me; there's a part of me that's just as traditional as him. 

And so, we do find ourselves engaging with one another in our marriage in terms of gender roles that would probably turn those of my inherent ilk inside out. And that's okay. But it works for us. It may not work for anyone else. But my strongest energy is feminine, and his strongest energy is masculine. We merge and blend and pursue a life that works for us. And we're happy. We're happy in a way that may not make anyone else happy. But that's okay. 

No, that's more than okay. That's the way it should be. As fast as I hold to the elements that create my Christeopagan identity, I hold even faster to the tenets of Unitarian Universalism: to each their own free and responsible search for truth. 

What I'm speaking of is merely my own. And I don't know what that's going to mean. I don't know if anyone is going to not reject me because of it. I'm accustomed to not fitting in; it has been the story of my whole life. But...ultimately, what I want more than anything? Is to maybe, just maybe, be someone who gives others permission to not fit into prescriptive boxes, either. Maybe I can be someone who demonstrates the reality that, we're not made to be carbon copies of anything. True authenticity, I believe, is discovering your inner facets. Embracing and celebrating all the uniqueness inherent to how fearfully and wonderfully made you are. You don't have to be this way, or that way. All you have to be is you. 

So, in conclusion, if I could sum up my spiritual orientation in a photo, this would be it:

 

 

Speaking into the Void

 I am presently still doing just this: speaking into the void. Speaking only to hear myself. All these bits and parts and fragments of social media this, that, and the other, exist presently for future purposes: for when my book happens. For when Bliss Capron more than writes, for when Bliss Capron is an actual author. 

My waking life is a literal dream come true. The culmination of the coming-true of a number of dreams that once upon a time seemed too far-fetched to even dream about. I really do have, at this moment, the life that my heart always desired: I am married to my best friend. We live in a lovely, spacious home in a perfect neighborhood. My daughters have a healthy, stable home and a stepfather they call daddy...daughters I have full custody of. And I am a housewife. A homemaker. An online teacher situated that my work is asynchronous and I have little to do yet I am paid handsomely, considering. My daughters are homeschooled via a virtual academy. We have such a vast amount of life that we are able to live together. 

We can do things like we did today: after my youngest finished her testing, we went to get lunch and watched an interesting video in the parking lot of the restaurant. We went to the library where they checked out entire series of books, voracious little readers they are. And they have plenty, plenty of time to read. We went wild in the used book section and emerged with a truckload of books to keep forever. Then we went to the animal shelter afterwards. We read books to cats. We cuddled with playful puppies. We journeyed to a neighboring town to get chicken feed. My eldest brought her purse full of change and paid for candy for herself and her sister in such a grown up, independent way. I spent the afternoon shouting scolds and "no ma'am!'s" at her for running in the sky-high platform sandals she decided to wear (a southern girl's got to learn). 

I was able to focus my energy on sending my husband encouraging texts, pictures of our day, because his work life is hard right now and this lifts him up. I was able to focus my energy on washing his linens so they'd be fresh for him tonight, washing his work clothes, packing his lunch, picking out a ton of history books for him to help inspire him in his own potential journey into writing fiction that he is considering. I was able to focus my energy on a task which, to me, is on par with the top tier importance of focusing my energy on being a mother: being a helpmate suitable for him, being his encourager, his nurturer, the one always in his corner doing all I can to make his life as comfortable and happy as I can. There is, to me, no greater calling than that of being a wife and mother. And yes, (future) friends: I can embrace this while still simultaneously being extremely non-traditional, someone who embraces conventional gender roles, marriage, a ton of (but sure as shit not all of) stuff from the Bible that suits my truth while simultaneously embracing my identity as queer, pansexual, neurodivergent, pagan as well as Christian, nudist, and non-binary. 

But I (as usual) digress. 

It's all beautiful; It couldn't be more beautiful, in fact. 

But there's just one problem: my writing career is...not what it once presented itself as having the potential to be. Not at all near what it should be, considering. 

I'm blessed to have what is absolutely the publisher of my dreams reading my full (literally right now, as it were), knowing that by the end of this month...I'll have an answer.

However, a request to read the full does not an offer make. I have to hold this reality in my mind. There is a very high likelihood that I may be told no. 

And if this is the case, yes...sure. I will self-publish. 

But even this has me seriously screaming silently inside of my head at God in all incarnations: what the actual fuck has happened? What is going on? And...why? Just, why?

I don't suffer under distorted delusions about myself at this point in my life. I am very familiar and well-versed in my weaknesses as well as my strengths. I know myself. 

I know I am a good writer. I am extremely talented. I absolutely suck at a hundred other things in my life, but writing is not one of them. I have a gift...albeit, one given I daresay as a consolation for all the ways I'm patently non-gifted, to put it mildly...all the ways in which I am and have always been predisposed to fail flat on my ass, against which I am engaged in a daily struggle to avoid succumbing. Yes, with this peculiar way that I am wired, likely by virtue of my damaged brain after the TBI...if I allow myself to go on autopilot, my natural course is one of self-destruction. But at least, I've always known.... I'm a damn good writer.

And I know this because... I was good enough in 2014 to have gotten an agent within ten queries with an earlier draft of this work that was absolute shit compared to what I have now. I was good enough to have gotten my full requested by HarperCollins Children and three imprints of PRH. That is HUGE. 

I got rejected and dropped by my agent. My manuscript wasn't ready. The concept was fire. But I needed growth. 

I have grown. I am ready. The book, the subsequent series, is ready, and I'm ready, readier than any ready I've ever been to go HAM, y'all, feelin' like Don Draper hollering, somebody, just get me (back) in a room! P-P-P-POW.

I'm grateful that I have a chance with this publisher because honestly, there is no other publisher I would want to have my series. They are where I see myself belonging more than anywhere else, a puzzle piece clicking together. I want this niche. I want this...everything...that they are. The last thing in a way that I think I would want would be to deal with big city people who are operating from a whole different universe of cultural norms and expectations than those who are a part of the native culture in which I grew up. This publisher is a niche operation centered specifically on authors from my region. The publisher is located in my region. We are going to be potentially speaking the same language across the board should this work out and my GOD what a blessing that would be. 

My last agent, not going to lie, scared the shit out of me. It is possible I scared the shit out of myself and projected it onto her. But honestly? Here's the heartbreaking thing... we worked together for, I don't know, let me count...almost four years...but there was no personal connection, no relationship. It was just business. Strictly business. It was transactional. And when my product was no longer, I don't know, marketable? Boom. Done. With a form letter, I was dropped. It was all so cold. And honestly? As I said, I am sure I was projecting all of this onto the situation. I'm sure I was probably misunderstanding. 

But then, the time came where I had this new and improved version of the original project, and the first query I wrote was to my old agent, at the top of my lungs, overjoyed, I've grown! I've made it better! Let's try again!

And it has been three months. I didn't even get a form rejection. After four years of working together...not even a form rejection. 

Ouch.

I'll just say it: I don't think I'm built to be able to handle New York. As a  matter of fact, I know I'm not. New York / Northern culture is just different than the culture I grew up in. Ironically, I married a man who is a Brooklyn transplant. Yeah, opposites attract. It happened; he's my damn anam cara and a half, sometimes things just are. And so my in-laws are from New York and oh, they are so New York and I love them, but they kind of scare the shit out of me, too. 

It's just hard because I grew up in a tiny town in Appalachia. It was so insular; that world was all there was. The furthest "out" I ever got was Roanoke...the biggest city in SWVA but still within it. Right on the verge. That's as far as I ever got. As close to the edge as I could square my toes, but I never could bring myself to go beyond.

 That is, until the man I married drug me a little further out. But still. Where I am now isn't home. Only home is home. And I don't mean to hold onto some bizarre xenophobia in this way, but it's only when I am on the verge of venturing outside of my Appalachian regional comfort zone that I realize how doing so is so patently uncomfortable that I just...kinda can't. And I don't want to. 

So what flavor of angst is it that I'm gnawing on? I'm not sure. I just know that I'm one hell of a writer who has written one hell of a book and the ones that follow just get better and better. I just know that so many snippets that I'm reading of people that were taken on by the same agents who have rejected me are just...not all that good. So I don't understand. 

The only thing I can understand is that when I am looking up agents, I feel lost in a sea of faces. Faces of people whose descriptions and wishlists are in no way remotely at all in alignment with what I have. It is so bizarrely sobering as I look at this more and more. How I am faced with this very surreal reality that... what I bring to the table doesn't matter, isn't going to make a dent in any of this because...it isn't what anyone wants. 

And even if they did... how much I know I wouldn't enjoy getting into another situation with another agent in which I might have the same experience I had with my former one? God, I know I would never want that again. And no, honest to God... I just can't see New York being the right place for me and my work, anyway. From 2014 to 2017, me and my little chip of a book were all wrapped up snug in the cotton batting of New York that was really little more than steel wool, accepting all of the itchy abrasions with desperate gratitude, lost in a perpetual moment of pause, breath suspended, waiting to exhale, for that one moment any moment from now that my life would finally begin.

And then... the discard. And worse, the comeback six years later in which I wouldn't even be given the nariest time of day by New York, because New York had simply gone some place else where me and my little Appalachian saga couldn't follow. We're a pair of muddy boots in a new world in which couture espadrilles are the mandatory norm. 

I really hope this publisher says yes. I can't count chickens before they hatch. I won't even begin to do that. But honestly, I just have this quiet knowing in my heart that if it is a no from them, then I am simply going to go out on my own. 

But it's just very frustrating... considering how far I got in 2016 with something so very inferior in comparison to what it is now...why, how, am I driven to the point where self-publishing might be my only option? 

I know I need to remember that God has a plan. He always has, and He is working things out right now in ways that I can't see, but I know I should trust because...He's never failed me yet. From all of the closed doors that should have opened that left me just as perplexed as I am right now, He has never failed to lead me to one that at once just opens right up against all odds. He's working things out for my good. I know this. I can trust this. 

But sometimes it's just hard when things that should make simple sense just don't. And I'm there right now. I know I'm worthy AF. I know I am. But yet... I'm absolutely just... confused. 

But you know what? My God, my life...my beautiful, just-what-I-always-wanted, just-right, just-in-time life that I worked and struggled my way up and into...there is that. I couldn't be more hashtag blessed. Well, maybe I could...if my husband would have caved into my begging to bring home the scraggly puppy I fell in love with today whom I would have named Agatha, who would have surely been the impetus for me getting up off my ass and walking off the 30+ pounds I've put on since my breakdown in October (haha. bull to the shit with all that right there, ngl). But... I'm sure God also knows that in addition to finding a publisher for my book, I would also like a puppy. I'm sure he's working that out too. 

And at this moment, a poem just drifted into my mind from some place I must have memorized and stored it up long ago. Yes, I believe I will allow myself to believe that this was literally Him leaning down and in a way He knew I would understand, whispering to me, just be still. 

Ahhhh....[bleep]

 

They're reading it. As in, now. My God. My anxiety has anxiety right now. Truly. Knowing that this said act would occur sometime within six to eight weeks was okay; knowing that this said act is occuring....now. NOW?! Eeegad. Attention; we are reading your book now. Kinda thrilling but since my anxiety has anxiety...kinda squirmy. I'm re-reading/re-listening to the whole thing right now just so I can...look at what they're looking at, kind of like peering over their shoulder. 

Ahhhh..... Fuck. :x

I had two immediate thoughts/images/word masses come into my mind upon the receipt of this email:

                                                    This...

As did this poem:

[in Just-]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee

-ish

And now I need a cigarette.