I have to admit it. I’ve been in a funk. I keep asking myself what is creating my funk: is it being overwhelmed by Levi’s needs? Is it the beginning of the school year? Is it the things I’m feeding myself with (food, music, movies, social media)? Is it exercise? Is it the people I’m surrounding myself with? Is it something more?
And last night, in the most unlikely place in conversation at Jeff’s college reunion, I figured it out: it’s that I’m growing.
I know, I’m almost 40 (almost 40!!!) and I’m growing. And it’s painful and it’s tiring. I’m always pushing myself to grow, but it’s always been incremental. This year, I came into the year with intentions and areas of focus that (I didn’t realize at the time) are in a particular weak area of mine. And now that I’m trying and failing, it’s been tough on my mind. I find myself sinking into some real negative self talk: Susan, you suck. You are in over your head. You can’t do this. You’ll never be good at this.
And it’s messed up! I’d never let anyone else speak to me that way. And I’d never talk to a friend that way. And yet, here I am feeding myself these horrible words.
And what’s worse: no one knows. When I let Jeff in on these things (which is not often), he is a real voice of love and reason. His words are worth feasting on: “Well, Susan, you can’t expect to be great at something that you are doing for the first time,” “You have to give yourself time to learn.” But I don’t always share this with him or with anyone else, so I’m left drowning in a sea of negative messages that I’m creating for myself - even though I'm surrounded by love.
All of these areas that I’m growing in are a part of a bigger vision that I have for my life to be more vulnerable, more risk-taking in relationships and more "in" for the things that I think are my things: connection and collaboration.
And expanding beyond my areas of comfort in connection and collaboration is very difficult.
On the work front, it’s trying to collaborate with parents to increase engagement for students.
On the home front, it’s sharing the responsibility of Levi’s care with Jeff and finding a way to do that in harmony.
On the social front, I’m opening myself up to new friendships.
On the leadership front, I’m stepping up in areas that I never had the intention of stepping up in and having to both build relationships from scratch and manage the tasks of the job. I’m trying to participate in meaningful ways and struggling to figure out what I can contribute.
All of these things involve putting myself out there and failing and learning how to do it better the next time. And that space in between the failure and the next time is HARD. And it has involved a lot of tears. I keep trying to blame the tears on hormones, but that’s really not it, it’s me sinking back into my old fixed ways and forgetting that failure is part of the path. And failure is the thing that is going to take me to the next destination. And without that failure, I’m just in my comfort zone doing the same things I was before. And that would be devastating because I want to LIVE LIFE.
And last night, I was surrounded by people I hadn’t seen in ten years. People who aren’t even really MY friends. They are Jeff’s friends. But because they love Jeff and because they have such beautiful hearts, they love me too. And they reminded me that who I am right now in this growth spurt is still fine. It’s a me that is still worth loving and embracing and engaging with. And they see me - mostly through social media due to distance - but they still see me and it’s not just for being Jeff’s wife.
And it helped me to see that the people in my life now also see me and they’re not seeing failure. The failure is something that exists in my mind and is hanging over me like a dark cloud. But it’s just failure. It doesn’t even exist. It’s a thing that happened and didn’t go so well and now it’s time to go forward and leave that cloud where it started and recognize that who I am is fine and worth loving.
I was seeing me as the failure. As someone who is struggling to get it right. But I actually AM still getting some right. And maybe those are the things that matter: showing up for my kids, coaching soccer, teaching my students, surrounding myself with good, reliably loving people.
I was always getting it right. And soon I’ll be getting it right in different ways.
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