Rejection, Acceptance, and Faith

I live on site at my job.  It's 26 feet from my apartment to my office.  This sometimes leads to awkward, strange mornings - me sitting at the desk taking a reservation when my boss unlocks the door on my day off, running for the phone still in a towel after my shower, or a renter knocking on my door having locked himself out.

Or, as it was about a month ago, a realtor trying to open my bedroom door.

Luckily, I lock the doors at night, otherwise the poor realtor, potential buyers (a high school friend of mine and her mom - seriously, small towns can get so damn awkward), and my boss would have had quite the sight.

The day the realtor woke me up was the same day I submitted a job application in a nervous, hopeful fog.  I had applied for this job once before, senior year of college when I still had a full semester of class ahead.  I never heard a peep.  A lot changed in two years, and I held my breath as I prayed over the process, sure that God's timing was so obvious here.

Three hours later, I had an interview.
The interview ended with them saying I had "an awesome set of skills."  They told me the decision would be three days.
Three days later, they told me three more days.
Three days later, the opportunity was gone.

They were very complimentary.  Basically, it had come down to me and someone else, and the someone edged me out.  If another opportunity came up, they would love to have me.

A nice rejection doesn't make you feel any less rejected.

I sat in the bottom of my closet and cried as I called my SO and my mom.  I ate an absurd amount of calories.  I bought some vodka.  I argued with friends, because sometimes they just don't say the right things and sometimes you just don't care enough to be nice about it.  And mostly, I felt crummy and boxed in and just not good enough.

7 days later, everything changed.

I was checking my email during a particularly slow moment at work.  The woman who would have been my boss made an appearance.  In essence, the someone else had backed out, and they wanted me - was I still interested?

Um, yes.


So now here I sit, filling my last two weeks before moving into The New, The Different, and The Unknown.  I spent those seven days resigning myself to staying where I was, to believing that the right thing would come, that there was a reason I wasn't "there" yet.  And now it's all changed again.  The world is so topsy-turvy sometimes, so hard to reckon with.  But I believe those seven days were good for me, if only to serve as a reminder that I need to accept myself and accept that I won't always be the best, the brightest, and the winner.

Personal Responsibility

Over the weekend, a (assumed) drunk driver ran his/her vehicle into my grandmother's house.  Into the house.  Went through the ditch, into three trees, a flower bed, and the house, leaving tire tracks and a gaping hole, not to mention an exposed underground cable and broken plumbing and electricity in his wake.

And then, with the truck still slammed up against the house, the culprit ran off.

To me, the idea of running away irks me even more than the accident.  There have been a rash of hit and run accidents around my hometown, and it pisses me off.  Don't get me wrong, I can understand being scared of the consequences.  I can't imagine how scared I would be if I were in the same position.

I'm not saying I'm the best about taking responsibility for my actions.  I've been known to tell some white lies, and it's something I'm working on.  And even thought I admit there is a big difference between not telling someone you ate the last cookie and leaving the scene of an accident,  I see a relationship between the two.

It's all about responsibility.  Where is the line between a white lie and a gross misdemeanor? What are the signs of a bigger issue?  

How do we get it back?