This summer, I rode the train for four hours to visit someone. I was convinced that he was worth it, that I was en route to my final destination. We spent the Fourth of July together, but instead of watching the festivities, I watched his feelings for me flare bright, briefly, before fizzling out under a firework-scorched sky. He ghosted me a few weeks later.
I spent the rest of the summer seething about the time I wasted: on texts and calls, in his bed, in a train car hurtling down a dead-end road. I longed to crank back the gears and return to early July, before I bought those train tickets and walked those twenty miserable minutes to the local station. If I could do it all over, I never would have waited by the tracks under the sun’s withering glare, a heavy bag of clothes strung across my shoulders, and New Jersey humidity pooling upon my skin. I never would have disembarked in Manhattan, sprinted through endless underground passageways to catch two subways to Grand Central, only to miss my train on the Metro-North line by minutes and breathlessly await the next scheduled arrival. I never would have endured this long, solitary, (sweaty!) journey for a boy who, instead of meeting me at the station, made me Uber to his place.
For the rest of the summer, I felt a furious determination to grip time in my fist and keep it from slipping away. If I couldn’t turn back the clock, I was still going to make up for lost time. Ignited by indignation, I threw myself into working, writing, reading, singing, moving. I folded myself into my family and friends. I poured all of myself into myself, instead of into someone else.
Then, the summer ended. Time continued charging onward. Upon returning to campus, I still felt energy powering through me—no longer fueled by resentment or regret, but by my own adrenalized aspirations and the lush sense of renewal that a new school year brings. In a parallel to the feverish behavior of my first-year self, I set out to meet new people, register for more clubs than could possibly fit into my schedule, and rush towards the things that terrify me—like improv, at which I tried my hand and failed laughably. I spent hours auditioning for musicals, rehearsing and running vocal warmups in my room, then racing from one audition to the next. Callback emails raised my hopes, until I received the final casting updates:
“Thank you for all of the time and energy you put into your audition and for sharing your artistry and talent with us. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a role in our cast.”
Uncannily, receiving a rejection email from a Yale theater production feels akin to receiving a rejection text from the guy who ghosted you over the summer.
Both hurt to read.
Both embarrass you, embitter you.
Both leave you regretting the time you spent pouring your hopes into something or someone, only to face the pitiful platitudes of rejection.
This time, though, upon reading through the influx of casting emails, I knew with a conviction deeper than my residual disappointment that none of my time was truly wasted. I did exactly what I had set out to do at the start of the semester. I bared myself fully, I met the things that terrified me headlong, and I did it entirely for myself. Real regret comes from not attempting the things that scare you, from not putting yourself out there, from not taking a chance on that audition, on that application, on that crush, on love.
Then, perhaps none of it was a waste. If I could rewind time and return to this summer, I wouldn’t do it any differently. I would board that train again and ride across state lines, watching Garden State landscapes swing by in all their verdant glory. Love songs in all their upbeat hopefulness would still spool from my headphones. My pulse would still speed under my skin—a miniature Metro-North of muscle-engine and liquid red rail lines running along my body. With my heartbeat in my fingertips, I would still text back and forth with the boy I had visited, growing restless with anxiety as his responses slowed into a listless silence. In the end, it was only through experiencing rejection in its most crushing form—from a person I liked—that I finally learned what I deserve, learned not to settle, and learned to choose myself first.
Rejection doesn’t have to be a dead-end road. It might just reroute you toward a better destination. And when you reach your final stop, you might even find that it was a homecoming.
