Everything disappoints

Life has a habit of turning out much nicer in my head.

We're only to Wednesday, mid-way through the week, and I've already suffered a slew of disappointments. I feel so pessimistic lately; I ought to look at the bright sides of things, but.... Nothing turns out the way it ought to and I feel sad about that.

I got an email on Monday telling me that my application to be a paid contributor on a stock photography site was rejected; my photos were not of sufficient quality.

*Punch in the gut*

I hadn't considered the possibility, frankly, that they wouldn't accept me. (Not me; my photos. I ought to stop internalizing that.) I don't know why. I have little actual art/photography training; I know I'm not some brilliant natural-born art world star. My life is rather prosaic; I guess it's no surprise that my photos, are, too.

Still, the disappointment caught me off guard and hurt my pride.

Later that day, though, I went to the mail to find a brown paper package with a Royal Mail stamp right above the destination address. Inside, the issue of the UK's Townswoman magazine that included a full page spread using the picture of my baby sleeping that I had uploaded to a free stock photography site. (It accompanied an article on teenage pregnancy, lol.) So my work may not be good enough to supplement my grocery budget, but apparently it's good enough to use in a magazine.

I left the magazine on the kitchen table, intending to find a safe place to store it until the baby was old enough to appreciate her stardom. But in the meantime, the toddler spilled her lunch of Cheerios and milk in the vicinity of Townswoman. It didn't get the baby's photo, but the first half of the magazine is now warped and the pages glued shut. Hardly the pristine condition I'd wanted to save it in.

Disappointed again.

This afternoon the FedEx man brought me the full color proofs of the cover I'd created for my brother's book. How exciting! But I opened the tube, unrolled the proof sheet ... and noticed something I hadn't noticed before, a last-minute mistake in all the tweaking that I won't mention here because it's pointless to do so. I wonder if my brother had noticed, too, but not mentioned it to spare my feelings.

*Sigh.*

There's always something to temper my excitement, isn't there? Nothing can go just exactly right. Nothing can go the way it does in my head, where my life is bright and shiny and all my endeavors succeed. I feel mired in mediocrity. I feel sad.

I'll get over it in a day or two, of course. I'll drive aimlessly around on country roads, listening to self-important folk singers on the college station while the girls sleep in their carseats in the back, until I feel better. Or maybe I'll just drink a few shots of Dr. Pepper (straight up, full strength, none of that watered-down diet stuff!) to drown my sorrows, lol. That would be the cheaper therapy, given the price of gas.


~RCH~