If I’m not already, I am soon to be a useless person to this society. I have no skills. I have no money. I’m getting to retirement age without any clue what career I should have chosen. Should I have chosen to be a poet?

My dad always said that I wouldn’t amount to much, and so far, he is right. The rejection letters far out match those that welcome my poems to their publications.

It’s a pisser to get a rejection via the U.S. Mail. If you sent them enough postage, they send your poems back with the rejection letter. I have a wall on the stairs leading to the basement that I have been wallpapering with my rejection notes. Someone once said that the more rejection letters you have, the harder you have been working. I guess they are right, but rejection letters are depressing.

Getting rejection letters in an email is no more fun than getting them in The US Mail, though it is easier to submit online than to lick envelopes and stamps.

My memoir, “The Delivery Guy,” was rejected by 62 publishers. I need an agent. I need to go to grad school and get a Masters in Creative Writing. I need to get a grip. It’s all a part of the game. Life is supposed to be this way. You are where you are. I can’t think of anything else that I should have been, that I would have wanted to have been, other than what I am. There are not guarantees in this existence. People say that dreams can come true, but people can fall flat on their face also.

I like who I am and what I do, and I’m not going to quit doing it. 

Another of my goals has been to not be 72 and be bagging groceries at the grocery store. Time will tell.