I asked a few of my friends to tell me about a time that they failed. I asked them if they felt like it was worth it to try something, even though it didn't work out.
I am really lucky to have friends who will tell me things like this. Their responses were honest and raw and revealing. All day today, I've received texts and emails describing how each of them came up short in his or her life. I know people who have lived through death, divorce, drugs, poverty, abusive relationships, and sex addiction. They have let down their children, their parents, their siblings, and their friends. And on top of that, they were willing to share their failures with me and have me type them up and put them on the internet.
I don't think I knew what I was getting into.
There were short text message responses like: I'll take life for 1000. Still waiting to see if it was worth it. Other, longer responses came via email. One friend of mine has started writing six different novels, none of which were ever finished, and he sent me the stories behind each of them. With every email and text, every tale of humility and disappointment, I felt closer to these people, like having this information about them somehow made them more human and fragile while also making them more badass and admirable.
"I failed at being the manager at (my job). No matter how hard I tried or didn't try, once I was promoted, my team was consistently unhappy and so was I. I was so wrapped up in...family stuff that I didn't have compassion for me, and even though I knew I shouldn't be the manager, I never did anything to release the stress."
"Last year I tried to pass the Motorcycle Rider basic course to get my license and failed 2 times, then the third time I crashed and dislocated my knee and sprained my whole leg. Embarrassing and sad as I come from a 'long line' of riders and enthusiasts and both my 17 year old nieces and my 22 year old nephew were successful in passing and have went on to buy their own bikes and ride happy."
"One that comes to mind is school, mainly high school, I failed it because of the time I was in my life. Moving to 3 different high schools in 3 different states when your dad tries to send you to a mental house and when your mom kicks you out at 15 when all she was doing was beating and abusing made it hard. I had to focus on being happy and self worth, while struggling to pass my classes."
Sometimes we failed at things no matter how hard we tried, no matter how badly we wanted them. Sometimes we failed people.
The inspiration to write this blog came to me the other day, when I was running some errands with a friend of mine and her six-year-old son. While we shopped and ate lunch, I watched the two of them together and made a note to try and be more like that with my daughter- more patient and considerate of her age and how she thinks. I unloaded all of my anxieties and some future plans onto my friend, and I was relieved when she responded with excitement and support. Her opinion of me as a fellow mom means a lot, and I felt way better about my decisions once we had spent the afternoon together. The very next day, she sent me text messages about how she felt like a "shitty mom" because she feels like she is constantly making wrong decisions with her son. This same woman that I use as an example of how to be a good mother, she is so worried about failing her child. We do this with our siblings. Our mothers. Our lovers. Failing people is something that a lot of my friends wanted to tell me about.
"I feel like I failed (at my marriage) because no matter what I did, said, showed, it was never enough. It was never enough to prove I was throwing every piece of myself into the marriage...marriage is a two way street, both spouses need to put in the effort and I felt like the only one drowning in both our problems trying to fix them and make it all work."
We've all felt like this. The sentiment is still the same. We've failed at things that we wanted soooo badly- like getting a motorcycle license or a marriage- and that is terrible. When we're kids, we're told to try our hardest, and it didn't matter if we succeeded, as long as we tried. But we also are told that failure is not an option and that it's important to finish what you start. Sometimes our best is not enough. Eventually, we fail the people we love. We can't always give them what we feel they deserve, and we take them for granted. The failure cuts extra deep on those days.
"I failed as a big sister when I was younger. I am 22 months older than her. We should have been tight, but we just seemed to have two different childhoods, even though we had the exact same living situation. I can still remember her coming up to me when she was a freshman, I was a junior. She had gotten her period and needed help. I showed her where the nurse's office was and went about my day. I still cry about it and tell her I am sorry. I was just an asshole at that age."
"My marriage. I thought I was ready to be with her for the rest of my life, but I didn't realize that I had many more years ahead that would alter and change me into a person that didn't need her around anymore. I failed her and I failed our marriage."
We also failed at things that we didn't even care about, and that is such a strange sort of failure, like a double whammy. Not only did we fail, we didn't even really want it in the first place and we STILL failed.
"I feel like I failed (college) because well...I literally did fail....but also because I failed to push myself to be better and actually try. Looking back at it now, I feel like I was afraid to succeed and do the hard work I knew I was easily able to do but I failed to put in the effort."
"I moved away from home to another state when I was 22. I lasted less than a year in Ohio before (I) moved back in with my parents. Even though I didn't like living in Ohio, I still feel like I failed because I ended up going back to Kentucky, even though I'm happier here than there."
These stories, they all feel important, like I should do more with them than just put them in a blog. These are the stories that made the people I love into who they are. These are the hard times that took the hardest blows to their spirits and made them look at themselves in new ways. Success is a wonderful, beautiful thing, but it rarely makes anyone introspective. Failure is so powerful, it can easily discourage us from ever trying again, but it can also motivate us to be better next time, to change and evolve to adapt to what life has given us. My friends, they are experts on survival, and not only that, they are all way more optimistic than they should be. Nearly everyone said that they would love to go back in time and warn themselves to make better decisions. But they ALL say that it was worth it to try something new, to gain the experience, to have the stories. Despite the broken bones, broken hearts, broken egos, and broken homes, despite all of us having this underlying dread that we don't know what we are doing with our lives, despite all of that... we would take failure over nothing at all.
And that means everything.
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