First Rejection

Wow, yesterday was a tough day. Rewind to the 2nd week of school when my oldest was told of an opportunity for a district wide Honors choir tryout coming up in a few weeks. Only five from each elementary were allowed to try out. She was chosen as one of the five out of twelve from her school and we were very proud.

Two weeks and a lot of hard work and last Saturday the audition came and went by quickly. Two minutes and one song later she came out smiling. She is a confident child. Sometimes, too confident for her own good because she just assumes she has everything in the bag. She told me on the way home that she missed her queue but caught up quickly. First red flag. I tried not to think about it but it bothered me. Especially when I knew that there were 300 kids going up for around 100 spots.

not MY daughter

As you can expect from the first few hints, she got the letter yesterday that she did not make it and was devastated. This is the first tryout she has ever had and it ended in rejection and oh my, it hit us hard.

It's easy to say from an outside view that it will be okay and she will learn from it, no doubt she will. But, she is also a child that feels everything and it was just a very hard day. Hard for her and maybe even harder for me. Children have a way of brushing off and getting going pretty quickly. Adults know that certain events could be pivotal and remember what they went through as children. With that in mind, hopefully Corey and I reacted in a way that would teach her to let this be a lesson instead of it being something that knocked her down. It's a little better today but it still stings.

I wasn't prepared for the magnitude that comes with your child being rejected for something but I'll just have to learn to toughen up for her sake. Our advice was this: It's over, it's the past already, there is nothing we can do to change it. You can be sad today but everyone that has ever earned something important has gone through some type of rejection. Next time you want something really bad think about how bad it felt to not get what you wanted and use that to push you even more. Wish your friends well that did make it and move on to the next thing.

I think she'll be okay. Me, on the other hand.....well, I'm still working on it.

Dear Ella, you'll get'em next time!