So, this really happened.
Exhibit A – looks innocent, don’t it?
I was helping my friend Mike move, and I had stacked the dresser drawers in opposite order so I could put them back in easily. The three drawers were all different sizes. I took the bottom drawer, which was largest, out last, so it was on the top of the stack to be put in first.
I did this, friends, because I had moved dressers before. More than once. I had a SYSTEM.
As I started to put the bottom drawer in, Mike stopped me.
“No,” he said, “that’s the top drawer.”
So I tried to put the drawer in the slot it didn’t fit.
I don’t mean I lined it up, saw it wouldn’t fit, and stopped. OH NO. The psychosis is deeper than that. Not only was this drawer way too big for the top slot, it was also a different SHAPE. But I rotated it and re-lined it up and shoved! Several times. And when it didn’t fit, I started crying. And kept trying. Because Mike had to be right.
After all, he wasn’t me.
I didn’t stop until a very, very confused Mike stopped me. I’ll never forget his look of disbelief. “Why did you do that?”
Me? I’m the worst, stupidest person on Earth. Didn’t you know?
Which explains, in part, my reaction to rejection letters:
BUT…
A writer is the expert of her story. She has to trust herself.
I’m not asking for egomania, here, but a writer should trust herself at least enough to trust her knowledge of which drawer goes into which slot.
Someday I hope I get there.
