The Challenge

Last week at work I opened my e-mail to find it was the last day to enter a contest to be a storyteller for a project the company is sponsoring. I applied. We were supposed to find out who won yesterday, but the announcement didn't come out until today. I didn't get it. It was a week long trip to Sri Lanka to an orphanage that was destroyed by the tsunami a year ago. The project was to interview people and tell their stories. It would have been cool.

I told myself all along that if it happened it happened. If I don't get it, it's okay. So when I didn't get it today, I was okay. I sort of sat and waited for a minute. I didn't know if there was going to be some reaction that I wasn't expecting. Okay, I didn't sit perfectly still. I was busy the whole day. But I thought something might happen. It didn't. Now I'm sort of just disappointed, but I'll get over it.

The essays that the winners wrote are on the company website. I tried to read them, but that's when I thought, Better not do that now. Wait a few days. I'm curious what they said. I think I know what about mine they didn't like, but the instructions were vague and I had about an hour to write it. There's a part of me that's embarrassed, but I don't know about what. I wanted something and I applied. I didn't get it. Embarrassment is not really the appropriate emotion. Another guy in our department got it. I'm happy for him. He'll be good. It's the business part of it, which I was not interested in.

What it made me think was, That's the kind of thing I'd like to do. Not necessarily go to Sri Lanka, but write. I think I really want to be published - again. It made me think that I need to write something with the aim of getting it into something, a newspaper or magazine. A short story thing is probably more up my alley. I've had a few stories bumping around in my head lately - an new one today on the bus home.

So maybe that's what I needed, some disappointment to kick my ass and get me to doing something. I did come out of the experience rather motivated. We'll see. I need to allow myself to just be diappointed for a little bit. I feel like when I woke up after a night of drinking and I'm still a little drunk. I just need to let my body do what it knows how to do and clear all the bad out.

Oh well. Sometimes sucky things happen.