C'est la vie.

Until today, I have managed to avoid (for the most part) the sting of rejection. It’s been too long, apparently, since the two of us last sat and chatted. Once or twice, a few times (actually, quite often) I have glimpsed it as it entered the room, but I’ve always weaseled my way out of a conversation. Slunk out, with the excuse that I hadn’t actually tried my best, hadn’t thrown myself wholeheartedly into succeeding (implying of course, that had I tried, had I thrown myself, I would have been indomitable).

Vindictive arbiter that life is, it has thrust a squall into my halcyon life.

Rejection hurts. The pain stems not from the act itself, but from the knowledge that I have labored and strived and endeavored and yearned—to my utmost—for so long, only to be denied. I have poured so much of myself into reaching for success that any true failure (though it may be trivial beyond triviality) will jar my precarious self-conception. And so it has been jarred.

But I
Will not
Let this define me.

Did I not work, for the intrinsic joy of creating, improving? Did I not study, to satiate my curiosity in unraveling new horizons, encountering new universes? Did I not convince myself, that stumbles are inevitable in life, universal acceptance impossible in it?

In retrospect, it is a healthy time for me to become disenchanted from my delusions of power. It is a healthy time to realize that the world does not bend to my will—yet. It is a healthy time, as the blooms of youth still color my eyes, to learn that life is not fair, or else it would no longer be life.

A few days from now, I will brush off the dust, reorient my feet, and set off once more. In the meantime:
C’est la vie.