Failure in the Wake of COVID-19

Failure is seeing the shuttering of my husband’s face—the hardened eyes, heightened color that signals betrayal—and knowing I hurt him like that. 

Failure is the careful treading around a good friend after a disagreement. It is the wondering—and not knowing—how I could have handled that situation differently. Could I even do it differently if I had the chance? Some things in us, I’ve discovered—some words said, some actions taken—rise from our deepest hearts, our primal natures, and are almost beyond our control. 

Failure is hearing from my agent that my book child, baby of my heart, will not be published by a certain publisher and seeing that child’s life rainbow out across months, its future uncertain. We love our children when they’re small, but still…we want them to grow. 

Failure is the resigned, grinding feeling in my spirit that tells me I have not attained something I want to attain, that the vague shadow of perfection I held in my mind has not been reached, and I’ve only mucked things up in my jumping and squirming for it. 

I carry with me a small sense of accomplishment, a high sense of shame. Does anyone else experience this? Some authors talk about how elated they feel when they see their published book for the first time—honestly, what I felt when I saw my first published book was acute embarrassment. Who knows what I had written in there and who now would have the power of reading it? I certainly didn’t want to crack open the book to remind myself.  

My huge acceptance of failure—the careful, hovering attention I give it—and my hurried glossing over of accomplishment—this is what I expect!—can make myself a hard person to live with. 

My dad reminded me recently of the time I was six years old in the first grade and bringing homework home every night. My teacher couldn’t figure out why I could never get my schoolwork done until she noticed how much time I spent erasing and rewriting. She had told us strictly that we must write neatly or she would erase our work and make us do it over and, conscientious child that I was, I took her words VERY seriously. She told my parents—out of the hearing of the other children—to tell me to write my words only once. I took this injunction as literally and ponderously as I had taken the other. Not to be allowed to erase? What if I made a terrible mistake, wrote the wrong letter even? But I did not erase and had no trouble getting my work done after that. 

In so many ways, I am still like that little girl so anxious to please and with no clear idea of who she would be without her constant quest to win others’ approval. Ironically, she is one she must please—not the teacher—and she is more merciless than any of others’ whose approbation she craves. 

I wrote a couple of reminders and hung them on my window. If at first you don’t succeed, do what you want. And, You are already failing. Enjoy the process.

Maybe the reminders will help. Maybe having a husband I love so much I am willing to unclasp my curl on perfection just a little to take his advice—maybe that will help, too. 

And okay, so this post actually has nothing to do with COVID-19, other than that I am living in the wake of it, and it’s the only fashionable thing to talk about nowadays. That and toilet paper. Has anyone noticed the prices on Amazon lately?

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Photo by Jasmin Sessler on Unsplash