The cowardly fall

Funny. I thought I’d write today. It’s been a year to the day since I left my position that I had always dreamed of in Boston and a year since I simultaneously found myself and lost myself.

I won’t make a lame attempt at a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon metaphor, because I’m just, ya know, way too good for that. But also, because it wouldn’t make sense. As I read my first post on here about leaving my corporate position and moving back to Houston, I see an act of bravery, but also of naïveté. I’m one fail swoop, I believed that I could abandon my preordained hopes and dreams and instead become this kindered spirit, whole and complete, who would be able to take my broken pieces (of which there are many) and glue them together. I believed, that with my new found freedom from the corporate handcuffs, with sheer will and determination, I could create, or rather, cultivate my own happiness. I am happy. But I’m also disappointed in myself.

Let me set something straight. I am happy. Or so I think I am. Just as I have had struggles in the past allowing those who I so desperately want to love to love me back, I have a difficult time accepting happiness. Don’t you? Or many of you who seem to identify with the words I say, I would think. Because, the other shoe will always drop. When you’re me, and have this misinformed belief that your actions can actually dictate your destiny, you know that eventually the newfound elevated happiness that you have found will eventually diminish, and like a recalcitrant child, you try to take ahold of it before it overcomes you.

You try to break the cycle. Yes, ladies and gents, I’m that girl. The one who finds the way to “control” the outcome by self-sabotage. But who am I to dictate my own happiness? I know with hard work and choosing the right people to surround yourself with, you can improve your mental health and many times experience great joy, but who am I to sabotage my own hard work and dictate it’s outcome. Why can’t I ever be the person who just lets things be? A truth I have come to realize in the past few days is that letting myself just be, being me minus the sabotage, is actually pretty damn great. Why would I ruin a great thing?

I recall the one time I tried to snowboard. Now, I happen to be pretty athletic but never one for athletics. Being a nice 5’9, I was pushed towards basketball, but scared of getting hurt or embarrassed, I would always hand the ball to my opponent when they tried to guard me. Much like with basketball, when I tried to snow board for the first time, instead of accepting the risk, I took hold of my presumptive failure and fell every other minute, like clockwork, to the fresh powder, because I felt like making myself fall would soften the blow of an unexpected wipe out.

It doesn’t work that way. I still had bruises all over my body and even worse, I had to experience the mortifying escort home on a ski mobile because the mountain was closing before I could fall my way down it.

Another year has passed and I don’t want to keep falling until the slopes are closed. I can’t keep believing that making myself fail is staying in control. I have to allow the chance for failure to take hold. I have to let those around me make their own decisions about me. I can’t make them for them. I can’t make them believe I’m not worth it for fear that they’ll discover it on their own. After all, if it already causes pain, then what the fuck am I doing?

I guess that’s being an adult right? Knowing that failure IS an option and being okay with exploring the path to it truthfully and patiently. Not rushing to create your own conclusions. Working hard, in every aspect of life, to build yourself up and to build up your relationships. Knowing that even if you failed, you did try. I used to think that was corny. I don’t anymore. I’ve let myself fall into the fresh powder too many times just to say that I couldn’t do it. I’ll commit it to writing: not anymore. Cue “if I could turn back time”…