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My actual Neal award came in the mail on Monday. It’s a fancy, heavy, engraved medal. It was not accompanied by any display devices or place to affix a ribbon to, so I’m not sure what to do with it. Guess it stays in the box.
Is there an analogy I’m missing? It’s a complete let-down to win an award for work on a magazine you were discarded from. Also, there’s no way to talk about it without forcing it awkwardly into conversations: “Yeah, no job yet. But I did win a pretty prestigious award you’ve never heard of, for these articles in a magazine you’ve never heard of on a topic you couldn’t care less about! So that’s all right.” I guess if I were really ecstatic about it I wouldn’t mind bragging a little, but no one from the magazine has even sent one tiny “Hey the HUD articles won big, good job” email, so where is the momentum supposed to come from?
It’s an award, be proud: but it’s meaningless to everyone I know, and the people (the person) whose acknowledgment has understanding (& therefore higher worth) won’t give me any, so there’s just me to be proud of it all by myself, and that is not in my skillset. The opposite, rather, HA HA HA, despite my best efforts to LOVE MYSELF because I’M PRETTY ALL RIGHT, TOO.
So hungry.