A Release from Hope

I actually received an e-mail this week from one of the publishers I applied to. It was a couple of form grafs saying although they considered me, they found someone more suitable. Basically, a rejection letter. However, I prefer to think of it as a "Release from Hope," no matter how tenuous that strand of hope may have been.

Don't get me wrong: I don't hold my breath for every job I apply to. I have no Great Expectations. But I do try to keep a little flame of hope burning.

I have to confess that's getting harder to do, which may be exacerbating my "under-the-weatheredness." I visited my local unemployment office this week to find out if I really needed a lawyer to combat the mysterious offense I'd made (see "Ouch! The IDES of February Are Hurting Me") and was told to "be patient with them." They're "behind." I should keep making my regular phone calls and someday soon I'd get another letter from IDES saying where I stood. (Of course, if it's as incomprehensible as their previous letters, I still won't know where I stand.) I wasn't in trouble. But no one could tell me whether I was or wasn't eligible for benefits.

So I've had no income for a month and I'm not sure whether there will be IDES income in the future. Makes me a little SCARED … WORRIED … TROUBLED … STRESSED … DESPONDENT … ALL those emotions I've been holding at bay by writing Lull. They've been waiting in the wings for this moment to bully me.

But I'm going to look to George Eliot for strength:

"But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope."
—From Middlemarch, by George Eliot

[Art by Vermeer.]