It hurts when a dream dies.

Not much of great import has happened since my last post. My job is okay, school is good, apart from all of the tests. Two more tomorrow. Woot.

Now on to the subject of my dark title. Lance emailed me today to let me know that Baily's Beads accepted one of my poems. And they rejected a lot more and a story. That was implied. And I realized what that means. It means that I'm not good enough. I'm never ever going to be a published author. Nancy was right about me. She wasn't discouraging me and giving me lower grades for twice the work because she didn't like me, even though she didn't, but because I'm very simply not good enough. I was too stubborn to admit it. It's never going to happen and it's just because I'm not a good enough writer.

I'm not going to stop writing, because it's part of who I am and because I love coming up with stories and characters and getting them down on paper, and because I like my stories. But I'm going to stop submitting things and trying to delude myself that anyone other than my friends will ever enjoy reading something I wrote. And if you're my friend and you've been lying to me about liking my stuff, stop it. I've accepted the fact that I'm not any good. You don't have to lie to protect my feelings anymore.

It's hard admitting that Nancy was right about me. I cried when I first got the email and what it meant hit me. But I can't hide from it anymore.

I'll never be an author, but I'm going to be a damn fine massage therapist. And if I hadn't gone to school for writing, I never would have met Paul or any of my other friends from college, and my life would be worse for it. So I don't regret going to school for something that I don't do well enough. At least not totally.