\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t (Illustration by Stripes Okinawa)
\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cDid they email you yet?\u201d my husband asked, yet again. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not yet,\u201d I told him, yet again.<\/p>\n
The email finally arrived yesterday. When I opened my laptop at our kitchen island and saw it in my inbox, my stomach jumped. <\/p>\n
\u201cDear Lisa, Thank you for applying to the leadership program class of 2026,\u201d the email read. \u201cRegretfully, we will not be offering you a place in this year\u2019s class. We received an extraordinary number of strong applications,\u201d blah, blah, blah. <\/p>\n
My stomach, which had leapt into my throat, sunk back into place with a queasy plop. I sat a moment, dazed, not sure how to feel. On one hand, I was relieved that I hadn\u2019t been picked for the leadership program for which I\u2019d interviewed and submitted an extensive application, because it would have required a lot of work, travel and time away from home while juggling my full-time job. <\/p>\n
On the other hand, I\u2019d failed. No matter how much failure may turn out to be a blessing in disguise in the long run, it still feels bad in the moment. Suddenly, the inner child that has lived deep within me since I was a chunky middle schooler with average grades and no extraordinary skills spoke up. \u201cSee, you\u2019re just not good enough,\u201d she told my consciousness. \u201cYou had no business applying in the first place.\u201d <\/p>\n
My husband had been telling anyone that would listen that I had applied to the prestigious leadership program. \u201cHoney!\u201d I\u2019d admonish him, \u201cStop telling everyone! What if I don\u2019t make it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re gonna make it,\u201d he\u2019d reply, without the slightest doubt. But I\u2019d known all along that there was a very good chance I would be rejected. Applicants were informed early on that it might take several application cycles to succeed, because the committee promulgated different criteria each year to create a unique cohort. The rational side of me knew that my qualifications were good enough for the overall program \u2014 I just didn\u2019t fit into this year\u2019s unique set of criteria. <\/p>\n
Despite this rational, healthy and intelligent assessment, I still felt bad. <\/p>\n
\u201cI told you,\u201d I wrote in the email forwarding my rejection letter to my husband. <\/p>\n
When he got home that evening, he kissed me and said, \u201cSorry, Hon.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cUgh,\u201d I groaned, \u201cnow I have to tell everyone.\u201d I wasn\u2019t looking forward to admitting failure to all those people my husband had informed of my application. I couldn\u2019t blame him. At least he had believed in me. I really wasn\u2019t looking forward to telling the people who\u2019d taken the time to write my recommendations. I told my husband I didn\u2019t want to tell anyone yet. <\/p>\n
The news was too fresh to accurately process. I needed time for the shock and pain of rejection to fade, so that my rational assessment would put this blip in time in proper perspective. While thinking things through, I recalled failures and successes from my past. Interestingly, while I vividly recalled many losses and defeats, my memory of achievements was foggy. <\/p>\n
Although a few decent boys liked me when I was a teen, my stronger memory is of the many dances, Valentine\u2019s Days and carnation fundraisers when I desperately longed for a boyfriend that never materialized. Although I was voted Most Improved and team captain, I can still smell the chlorine from countless high school swim meets when my father was disappointed that I didn\u2019t get my best time. Although I earned my degree from a good college, I\u2019ll never forget that C-minus in political science that was nearly a D thanks to skipped classes and pulling all-nighters before exams. Although I earned my J.D. cum laude, passed the bar with flying colors and became a litigation attorney, the rejection letter I received from Wake Forest University Law School will forever be burned into my memory bank. <\/p>\n
I realized that the sting of failure can obscure perceptions of successes and achievements. During moments of inevitable disappointment, it\u2019s important to keep your inner child from blowing things out of proportion. More importantly, when you are victorious, bring that inner child out of hiding, and teach her to celebrate your success so you\u2019ll never forget all that you\u2019ve achieved. <\/p>\n
Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com<\/a> and in Lisa\u2019s book, \u201cThe Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com.\u201d Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Illustration by Stripes Okinawa) \u201cDid they email you yet?\u201d my husband asked, yet again. \u201cNo, not yet,\u201d I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[20442,8,11941,10309,20440,20438,162,11939,1315,20439,20441],"class_list":["post-25606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-okinawa","tag-bright-side-of-failure","tag-japan","tag-lisa-smith-molinari","tag-military-spouse","tag-military-spouse-essay","tag-military-spouse-failure","tag-okinawa","tag-the-meat-and-potatoes-of-life","tag-us-military","tag-us-military-essay","tag-us-military-spouse-essay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}