In 2015, I Will Fail
In 2015, I will fail.
I will fail at being a mother. I will fail at being a wife. I will fail at being a family member. I will fail at being a friend. I will fail at being a writer. I will fail at being a cook. I will fail at pretty much every thing that I try to be.
And I’ve finally (finally!) come to the realization that this is okay.
I was rocking C the other night at 3 in the morning because she was (of course) wide awake and I thought (crazily so) that rocking might put her to sleep. I’ve not been the most patient of mothers lately, mainly because these nights of her waking up at 2, 3 or 4 am and staying awake for an hour or two have been coming more often than not. B, C, and myself were sick two weeks ago and I got hit with mastitis just before Christmas. This makes for an unhappy mama cocktail which, in summary, means I keep screwing up. I love the principles of attachment parenting, but I’m not so great at applying them in some most situations.
I was rocking and rocking and rocking and it was a good night because I was, despite the paltry hour of sleep I managed to get before she woke up, being patient with her. I was enjoying her. Her littleness. The softness of her head. The smell of her. The feeling of her little arm around my neck. Every so often, she’d bounce, which normally sends me into an inner volcano of rage and despair, but for some reason, that night, I just kept quietly rocking and thanking God for the fact that I wasn’t freaking out. I wasn’t flying off the handle or putting her down so I could just not be a mom (HAH) for a split second.
And it suddenly hit me that I will fail. I know, light bulb moment, folks. One of my many quirks is that I tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater (figuratively speaking for any of B or C’s grandparents reading). When I attempt something, parenting, friendship, projects, etc. when I get to the part where I fail at some aspect of it (which I inevitably do), I tend to launch myself into the Pit of Despair and either give up altogether, or wallow there for a while and leave part of myself behind to keep dwelling there. If I fail at any aspect of something than I, Rebecca, am a failure and there is no gray area. No in-between. No giving it my best shot.
Success or failure. That’s all. Resistance is futile.
But in that moment in the quiet hours of the morning, I knew that I would fail. I knew that I wasn’t suddenly going to start being patient with my kids all the time because I had one good night. I knew that I would, whether or not it was the next night, the next week, or the next month, lose my cool with one or both of them and make some kind of enormous parenting error.
It will happen.
But another mechanism clicked in my brain at the exact same moment and a connection was made. The light bulb finally came to life.
On the cosmic balance sheet, failures do not equal more than successes. Yes, I will have bad times. I will make stupid decisions. I will say and do hurtful things, not only to my kids but to my husband, my family members, my friends, the lady at the grocery store, the guy walking his dog on the street, etc. etc. and so on forever. I WILL do these things.
But I will also have successes. B will do something INSANELY annoying and I will not snap at him to stop but will just enjoy the fact that he’s a little boy with so.much.energy and an enormous heart. C will wake up and bounce and coo and giggle at 3 am and I will rock her and kiss her cheek and tell her that she is pure love. And as long as I know that these times number more than the failures, I’m doing okay. As long as the times of love, the times of patience and kindness and gentleness and laughter and all that equal more than the times when I’m just done and my head explodes, we’re doing all right.
We’ll be okay.
So my one resolution in 2015 is to fail and be okay with it. To not dwell on it, but just accept it, move on, and aim for the good times. Because those really are the thing that matters the most.
awesome. accepting it rather than feeling guilty. giving yourself that grace. that is really a big thing, thanks for sharing it! 🙂
Thanks, Kristine!
i do the same thing. i try but don’t keep up, then declare the task too hard and give up entirely. or i never start in the first place! i’m trying to do the same thing you’re talking about here: acknowledge the success/the good and realize it isn’t erased by a much smaller bad moment or slip up. so instead of resolving to totally quit a bad practice or take on a completely new good practice — i just want to try to increase the good and reduce the bad. plus, this gives me the opportunity to eat just a little bit of dessert once in a while. hee hee. thanks for sharing!