city of rejection

Day 0, some 24 hours before departure and spreading wise words: Make it intense.

Feelings are intense at the moment. Ready to leave behind memories. Closing a cycle where it opened:
In the city of rejection.

Some years ago, before I came to NL and lost a very relevant bit of myself I tried to continue my march into Asia by coming through a scholarship to both stay in touch with the university world and to start off in South East Asia, as my experiences there and further on that area always made me feel I belonged there somehow.

Memories take me back to that group of 8 candidates, I made friends with 4 of them, the ones I felt more enthusiastic about it, leaving behind the ambitious ones who looked over your shoulder.
My interview was like an attack. Assisting in teaching German as a second language. I studied the language as a second language and sold myself as a living example of a success case reliant in the German university system.
There I was sitting in front of a woman called Ann Butterworth, who had a very strong English accent.
I lost face when they asked me: how can you bring people closer to the German culture being a foreigner?
It annoyed me. I didn't think it was a stigma. I can still explain German grammar better than a German. My accent is not strong. How can then a Miss Butterworth get away interviewing me? How could miss B make it to organize an exchange program to promote German language as a foreigner then?

I remember what happened when I got the rejection letter. The other 4 candidates didn't get the position either. We called each other. We wrote each other. We shared the bitter taste of failure.
I tried applying 2 more times. Same results.
The third time I got there without even feeling like it. Take me or leave me. I don't understand your policy. I am a walking case of motivation. What else do you want?
I thought you could get something if you wanted it so badly. I guess I was wrong.

I could have stayed in my beloved Germany. But I moved. I detached from uni life. I missed it every day. After the 3rd rejection letter and an attempt to go overseas through other means I tried concentrating in building up, as life turned into a "professional life".
I haven't liked working for a company. It is alienating. I remember how much time I spent in the office at the beginning, writing songs and reading Sartre, Marx and Descartes.
I remember my dear flatmate, 'the thinker' and our interests in philosophy and art in general. I remember his writings. He remembers my dreams.

As time went by interests swifted. Reality check. The rest is history. Years later, on quiet days at work I choose a weekly obsession (autism, transgenders, overpopulation, dolphins, eating disorders, tantra, mental illnesses, amazing animals, Amanda Palmer, quantum physics, Annelise Michel, community channel, judaism, prophecies...). See how far they were from my post war poets or existencialists. Seen as diashow and it says enough. The mind slows down. The inquietudes fall in a slow slumber.

City of rejection, here I am. Show me why you didn't want me.

I am starting where I didn't begin. And you know what? Maybe I find out I didn't want you either.