the best thing that ever happened to me

This is a post fourteen years in the making. Wow has it taken me fourteen years to act like a grown up? I guess it has.

I am talking about not being hired for the university position for which I had applied and which I believed I deserved to get. In my head, for a long time I thought of this as "being fired." But of course, I was not fired. Partly because I never had anything other than an adjunct's position in the first place and also partly because there were people who were decent enough to still ask me to keep working as an adjunct, though in my head that was somehow worse than "firing" me because it was insulting for me to consider still working there after all the fallout.

It was with one exception the most painful thing that ever happened to me. In my old accounts of this story, what made me mad was that no one had the guts to actually call me up and tell me that I wasn't going to be in the top three candidates. I thought I "deserved" that, too. Looking back, I suspect it may not have been legal for anyone to tell me this. What happened was that I saw a flyer announcing a talk being given by a guy who had been a grad student at the first class I took as an undergrad in the summer before my first year at the university in question. I didn't realize what it meant until hours later. I eventually called up the chair and chewed him out. I have no idea why I thought that was a good idea. He acted calm and I'm sure he had lots of experience dealing with crazy angry people. For years, I thought of him as a jerk. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't, but this was not one of his jerk moments.

One of my friends from grad school (a woman) was eventually hired for the position. I left the university and was so angry that I had difficulty even walking onto campus (though it was the university in the town I was living in). I had difficulty being in the same room with any of the professors of that department (no, that didn't happen all that often, but I spent lots of angst imagining scenarios in which it would and worrying about them). When I talked about what had happened, people had to stand back because they might get splattered with the ashes of my self-respect. I didn't even think about applying to another university for a position, either. That whole part of my life was over. I didn't read German novels anymore. I wasn't a German professor anymore. I didn't even have a PhD anymore. I was an entirely new person.

I still have no idea what happened. I don't know if I pissed someone off, got a bad letter of recommendation, or simply wasn't as good as I thought I was at what I was doing. I can see how immature I acted in certain moments and what an impression that might have given. But you know what? It doesn't matter anymore. I am proud of some of the things that I did, and not proud of others. I am proud that I realized what a chance this blow to my ego was. In cutting my ties with my academic life, I was able to throw away all the baggage that came with it. I saw clearly somehow that if I was ever going to be a writer, then I had better be a writer then. There were no more excuses for it.

I threw myself into writing with a passion. All the time and energy I had once spent working at the university, I spent writing. I wrote with a frenzy to make up for lost time and to prove that everyone was wrong about me. And I wrote because I was--finally--doing what I had never had the courage to do before. Was there a better attitude to have about writing? I don't know. Maybe people who do it calmly are just as passionate. I don't think so. I think anger is one of the most useful things to channel into writing. Being angry is extremely freeing. Or it was for me. I was angry enough that I didn't care anymore about writing "literature." I wrote what I wanted to write. I didn't care about people looking over my shoulder anymore. I was done with that. Still today when I teach my fairy tale writing workshop, I try to find the kids who hate a certain fairy tale because that is a feeling that allows them to jump in to a fairy tale with both feet and tear it apart and make it what they want it to be.

This is the hidden story behind those driven years. How did I find the energy to wake up at 5 every morning and write? Why did I care enough about it that I juggled sleep schedules with four kids to find time to write during naptime? I was angry and I was also terrified that I was going to have to crawl back on my hands and knees and admit that they were right.

Not sure there was a specific moment when the anger disappeared. Maybe I hung onto it for a long time after I should have because it was fueling my creative production and I didn't know if something else would come along and take its place or not. I always thought that I wanted to know why it happened or maybe I didn't want to know why because I was a coward. But the wonderful thing now is that it doesn't matter anymore. I'm here where I am. I'm glad I am here. As many problems as there are with being a writer, the craziness of the publishing world, the angst of contracts and expectations, this is the life I always wanted. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is go downstairs in my pajamas and write about whatever I want to write about.

And somehow, the worst thing that ever happened to me became the best thing that ever happened to me. Not just by magic. But because of the choices I made to redefine myself and do what I had always wanted to do. Sometimes you need that kick in the butt. And so I say to those who I once thought treated me like crap, thank you.