Feelings on Losing the CAMP Challenge

I was pretty devastated when I saw that the winners of the Summer Camp challenge were not me. From the time it turned midnight on July 5th when I knew they were choosing the winners, I kept refreshing the challenge page. I prayed to Jesus, filled my head with all this hope; I thought maybe I had a chance.

So when I saw the results, I actually had to hold back from crying, which I felt a little embarrassed about in front of my roommate. I told him quickly that I'd lost and rushed off to grab my keys.

Luckily, I found out right before my therapy session. I plop myself down on the brown leather couch and Preston has a white cone shaped mask on, "I have a cold," he lets me know, "I don't want you to get it."

I tell him that's nice of him and he starts asking me about my week. I have so many thoughts racing in my head, I'm afraid if I talk too slowly I won't get it all out. I tell him about the affirmations I've been using and how I found comedy that I actually liked and I was exploring that part of myself. I briefly mentioned how my depression felt physical. I tried to fast forward through all of that and get to the meat of what I wanted to say, "I signed up for this writing challenge and I lost," I told him, the tears welling up in my eyes again, my reaction surprising me.

To anyone who hasn't dealt with depression, this probably seems like I'm overreacting. I told him how I thought I was a good writer and how I'd always received positive feedback from teachers and professors. "It seems impossible to get anywhere in this huge sea of people," I went on, "I feel like a failure and it makes me want to give up. I don't want to give up, but I want to give up."

"Have you ever seen that show The Voice?" Preston asks.

"Yeah, the singing competition show."

"Imagine if Bob Dylan went on the voice."

I knew right away what he was getting at, "He's an amazing writer and I love his voice, but a lot of people think his voice is terrible."

"Right, he never would have made it."

"Nope," I laughed at the absurdity of it.

"But he didn't give up. Did you write what you wanted to write for the challenge?"

"I did. I wrote exactly what I wanted to write and that probably hindered me from winning. My writing can be pretty dark."

"So you liked what you wrote before you needed external validation in order to really like it."

"Yeah, I got kind of used to it and now, I'm just a nobody. I still like it though. I think it's a good story."

Ultimately, my session with Preston concluded with me being okay with not winning the challenge. Me realizing that maybe my writing about an eating disorder were not what an up and coming macaroni and cheese brand were looking for when choosing winners. And that's okay. I had to process it.

Once I got past my knee jerk reaction, I realized losing wasn't personal. And I don't have to internalize it. It says nothing about me as a person, as a writer. And it's okay that I'm still proud of my story. I don't have to put pressure on myself to be this amazing writer. Because even having an idea of yourself as being great at something can create unneeded tension. It can take the fun out of the process when you feel like you have something to live up to. I can keep chipping away pieces of my soul on this tiny little corner of the internet. And if no one reads it, it's okay.

When I was a child and I started writing, I did it because I liked the feeling of typing and connecting with my mind through my fingers. I was amazed at how the motion of my fingers could make the thoughts just slide out of me where my vocal cords often failed me.

I never did it to get paid. But the lure of the prize money was pretty strong especially during desperate these times, though I realized that isn't why I wrote the story in the first place. I wrote the story because I had something that I needed to get out of me. I was letting my emotions which were really about my financial situation nearly rob me of that.

Preston shared with me he uses social media to create mini comedy sketches about being a therapist and no one really sees them, but he still does it anyway. Even if no one laughs, he told me, that almost makes it funnier to him.

What if Preston entered a comedy contest and the judge didn't like his comedy? Does that mean everyone wouldn't like his comedy if they had the chance to see it? No, of course not.

I think in a way, our world has become so much about external validation that it can override our own internal validation. We can feel proud of something but without that stamp of approval, that means we can't approve of ourselves anymore. That's what almost happened to me.

I think winning a contest or having a lot of eyes on your work could be a byproduct of hard work, but not winning also doesn't mean the opposite. Writing in order to win money becomes more like trying to find the right blueprint instead of just playing around with the jungle in your head. There's a certain rigidness to it if I enter a writing contest and in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "Will the judges like this?" It kind of puts a cap on the natural flow.

So anyway, I don't suck and I'm not a shitty writer just because I didn't win. I'm just a person who writes. I like writing. The more challenges I enter, the more practice I'll get at doing what I love.

To reiterate the new affirmation that Preston gave me to say; "Failure doesn't say anything bad about me."