The power of rejection
It was October, 11th, 1990. I had seen the clouds gather, and I couldn't exactly say I was surprised. My son would become exactly 5 months that day. That would be also the day in which I would lose all my maternity privileges and would become passible of being fired (in Brazil, you cannot fire pregnant women or during their maternity leave. They have stability till two monts after their return to work). I came in the newsroom and I could feel the heaviness of the air. I was called into the big boss's room. I knew what was going to happen. He said apparently embarrassed that he was going to fire me, and that he wanted me to sit so he could explain me the reasons. I looked at him and said that I couldn't care less for his reasons, and left. I had a 5 month old baby to tend, I knew that this had nothing to do with my qualities (or lack of them) after four years on that job. I knew he would try to convince me that it had been my fault (it wasn't, I was just one of a string of cuts), and in the end, to feel better with himself, he would say wonderful, meaningless things about my work capacity. I had more to do.
You wonder why I am recalling these things today. I just awoke from one nightmare. It was simple. One of my younger co-workers was reading something I thought fit to be published and said it was too short. I argued that it wasn't. Then he said that it was just plain bad. Then my she boss came and fired me. After 14 years. And it is like losing my own identity. I woke up gasping for air, and couldn't go back to sleep, so here am I writing about it. It is a recurring nightmare, and the interesting part is that, at least in a conscious level, I never had any doubts about my worth as a journalist and as a magazine writer, even when my job situation was not exactly secure. Still, every month, I take a glimpse at the fund we have for unemployement and calculate how long would I be able to stand if I got a big kick on the butt from my present job.
That is the lingering power of rejection, I guess. It keeps coming back like a sticky tune (or like bad guacamole too).
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