Ouch, Rejection Hurts

Sometimes I feel like rejection doesn't just take your breath away.  

It feels like a full swing axe wedged in your lungs and vinegar bathed onions in your eyes.

Media.  How do you find your place in the world?

Where does one find a home for one's writer's voice?  How exactly does a "full scale background in heavy journalism and resume of accomplishments" (as a newspaper editor just emailed me) fit for a young womyn of color like myself who doesn't have the finance to go back to school, has a passion for journalism, but can't seem to find a way to make headway.

I'm not asking or looking for an easy way, I'm looking for a chance.

Perhaps this why I admire make/shift, Colorlines, Left Turn, and Utne so much.  They not only feature, but RELY upon independent voices and fresh blood.  Perhaps this is why I need to wake up and stop hoping that big media is going to change and, rather, change MY expectations and look elsewhere for my work, my voice, my trembling tree of reason.

I understand that in any discipline - media, counseling, health - one must acquire experience and trust in a field before she is relied upon to exercise independent judgement and open wings.  That's not what I have a problem with though:  what happens when those experiences are not available to you?  Where do you go when doors are shut at the entry level?  What happens to young women who change their minds and want to be heard but are told they are too late?  Too late at 29 years old.

I am too late, apparently.