When I finished reading Penelope Trunk’s Some Advice on Taking Advice, I added “Failing in Front of You” to my list of post ideas. After you have dutifully read Penelope’s post, you can continue reading below.
Venture into the neatly organized yet chock-full, moving truck style mind of Miss Early Bird—if you dare—and you will find coulda-woulda-shouldas surfing brain waves back to my psyche, proclaiming, “You failed today. Yesterday too.”
Now, let’s step back into the external circumstances that cause me to feel so defeated. Unable to materialize a personal drama equivocal to Penelope’s abusive husband or ruining her friend’s life, I came up with a recent failures list which ultimately places ironic quotation marks around the word failing with their hilarious inconsequentiality.
- I got a cavity for the first time in my whole life.
- Four out of the five plants I bragged about in Pinterest This died weeks ago. The shriveled remains were replaced with fake succulents from Target. I am sinfully satisfied by no longer being responsible for their fragile lives.
- In Another New Year’s Resolution?, I promised 24 blog posts in 2012. We are seven weeks away from yet another new year and I am seven posts away from that goal. Yikes.
Failing only exists inside your head. I am failing during mental breakdowns in my car (great spot to sob uncontrollably) or my journal where I can scribble irate words that could someday be misconstrued for ransom notes. But I cannot fail in front of you. Within these digital pages, I only stumble. I tell you a story, I fall on my face or make a mistake and we all get a good laugh.
Are you actually failing or do you just feel like you’re failling?
Miss Early Bird 
Thank you for the perspective, Miss Early Bird. My recent failures that I will now dub as “falls” are…
1. Getting yet another email from the teacher that my child is practicing his tackling skills at recess.
2. Not having the ingredients I planned on for dinner last night and having to “punt.”
3. Having a breakdown over Christmas plans WAY too early this year.
4. My 18 month old picking my husband over me every.single.time.
Yep… it’s all gonna be OK!
Love your list, Kel! You’re right. Your thoughts may convince you that you are falling or failing but each situation and each one of your children will be OK.
hm…leave it to MEB to make me THINK this morning!
I don’t have a car (wishing I did based on your commentary)…but I have some interesting parallels to you (including, of course, our names) – I, too, had my first cavity this year AND I kill all plants (& always have, probably always will).
regardless, here’s my list of my life of barely organized chaos:
1. I spend more time working & thinking about work than thinking about & being with those I love. Including my HUSBAND (who is extremely nice to me regardless.) – FAIL.
2. It looks like a bomb went off in my apartment, and frankly, has for about a year. Yet I love the look of an organized closet with labeled rubbermaid bins & stress about it not looking that way. – FALL
3. While I love working out, I’ve prioritized sleep over the gym this fall. – FALL
4. Speaking of sleep, I don’t do enough of it. – FALL
5. I haven’t read a book since August. – FALL
Just this past weekend I had a moment of optimism & was convinced by the flower lady at the grocery store that I could keep a succulent alive…based on your commentary, sounds unlikely…but I’m going to DO IT this time — although good to know that Target has fake options 🙂