On failure

I am 40 years, 5 months, and 22 days old… and I just said “I failed” for the first time.

I didn’t realize until today that I’ve never admitted failure. It never occurred to me to frame it that way. I didn’t fail to win a figure skating competition, I simply took second. I didn’t fail to get into Yale… I got into nine of the 11 colleges I applied to. I left jobs because I found a new opportunity.

Throughout my life, I made mistakes. I stumbled. But if anything, they were lessons. Course corrections from the universe. 

But the past year? The past year was an utter failure.

I tried, with my whole heart… with my finances, my belongings, my dog, my sanity… We all moved to South Africa to create a happily ever after that fell apart spectacularly.

I failed at my relationship. I failed at making friends, building a life, and running my business from abroad. I failed by virtually every metric that counts.

So why was this year different?

Well, for the first time ever, I allowed myself to have metrics.

In the past, I just lived. I avoided a five-year plan. I simply did my best. I looked for the next opportunity. And I never pictured a specific future.

Sure, there were things I wanted, but I didn’t have a vision or a framework for them. There was no white picket fence, no list for my dream guy. Not naming the things I wanted relieved the pressure I felt to deliver in a specific time frame, in a specific way.

But sometime last summer, that changed. I fell in love with one of my best friends. I started picturing what our life would look like together—I had a 2-year plan). There were goals. I talked about them out loud. Not just with friends and family, but with clients and strangers (as happens when you’re moving to a new time zone).

And then, I systematically failed at all of them.

I failed at my relationship… slowly and spectacularly.  I made sacrifices in the name of a happy ending, and those sacrifices came with expectations. I worried that my family was worried. I felt enormous pressure to make things work—the stakes were so high, after all. So I ignored red flags. I nearly killed myself trying to fix things. I bent myself into shapes I didn’t recognize… and there were no familiar faces to reflect the changes back to me. I couldn’t see I was on the verge of breaking… and so I broke.

I failed to make friends. I made one, sort of. But there were red flags from the start. Still: Who was I to be picky? I was a stranger in a new place, ascribing sinister motives seemed wrong. But then I didn’t make any more friends. I was guarded when I should have been open, open when I should have been guarded. And when my relationship fell apart, I was all alone. It is difficult to put yourself out there when you are struggling, even when you know community will help.

I failed at growing my business. My ex got so involved in helping with my plan to scale, that when he left, it cost me literally (legal fees) and figuratively—it destroyed my motivation and the joy I got from what I was building. The work that I love (the work that inspired me to build a company) felt suffocating. I could barely open my computer some days. This business that was my dream… I came so close to losing it.

I failed my dog. Her health took a hit when we first moved here. And we spent so much time just the two of us… that my sadness rubbed off on her. I have cried huge ugly tears every one of the 172 days since I turned 40. And now, when I leave my apartment, and leave her behind, she howls violently… worried that I won’t be OK without her there to protect me… nervous that I’ll come back sobbing and smelling of her ex-step-dad once again.

I failed at my health. I wanted to use this period of affordable health care to figure out those nagging health issues that get overlooked when you’re a woman in America. I spent a lot of money and was diagnosed with burnout. I was able to achieve a handful of my goals, but I can’t say I feel all that much better than when I left… and frankly, while the diagnosis would have been expensive in the U.S., it certainly would have cost less than I spent moving here  (or the upcoming cost of moving home). Still, I’ll give myself a little bit of credit—we can call this one a half success.

I’ve failed at South Africa. I had a list of the things I wanted to do living here… and I’ve barely checked off half. Largely because of all the reasons above… and because fighting all of those reasons felt too hard, the return too small. I love adventure; I love exploration. And I’ve been too sad to do much of it. I’m fighting to fix this in the month or so I have left here. And every time I rage against entropy, it seems to pay off. And each little victory gives me hope that I can turn this one around.

But here’s the thing about failing. Something magical happened when I admitted defeat: I began to see all of the times I’d failed before.

I failed at being a daughter to my dad. I fought for that relationship through alcoholism, lies, abandonment, death. I made myself miserable all because the stakes were too high. (Sound familiar?) But in the end… I still failed.

I failed at my television career. Sure, this was a choice. I decided it wasn’t for me. But isn’t that sort of the same thing? I didn’t want the long hours or the future I saw. But that career path was a dream of mine once, and I failed to achieve it.

I find this new perspective liberating.

I no longer feel the need to justify my failure by couching it in a learning experience. I don’t need to justify it by what I discovered on the other side. I am releasing myself from the pressure to reframe my story.

I don’t want to look at this as a learning experience. I don’t want to paint it as some big adventure salvaged out of a broken heart.

I need to admit what happened: I went all in on something. For the first time, with no safety net, I leapt. I trusted another person. I dared to envision a specific future… I dared to make a plan. And God laughed. I failed. I lost months of my life here.

But that’s OK. 

It’s more than OK. I finally named the thing.

I failed. I failed spectacularly. I failed publicly.

And I’m still here.