When Success Becomes Scarier Than Failure

I’m finding that fear is starting to paralyze me as I get closer to moving cities and trying to pursue a more creative career. Underneath the fear is a spark of excitement but it’s like trying to find a single flame in a forest fire.

    My main fear in life thus far has been failure. And I really have failed at reaching most of my life goals. It wasn’t my abilities or determination that screwed it up but the inevitable moment when my bipolar symptoms took over and my life either slowed down or stopped entirely. After a few (dozen) crashes I would eventually have to admit that whatever goal I was chasing had been too stressful or intense. My mind can be a fickle bitch.

    However, fear of success is now fanning the forest fire. If failing before I even reached my goals was devastating, imagine the pain of reaching my goals and then being swallowed up into a bipolar nightmare. The fall would be so much more devastating and harder to recover from. I know I can recover from failure because I’ve done it plenty of times but crashing after success, I’m not so sure.

     I feel like I’m moving towards a life where I could spend more time actually feeling fulfilled and happy and less time anxious and angry. Living in a place that feels more like home and following dreams that bring me joy. I don’t know what will happen in the coming months and years of this new life I’m trying to create but at least I’m now scared of success instead of failure. That’s a win, right?

 

 

An Artist's Job

 

 I believe an artist’s job is to bravely traverse their inner world so they can help lead others through theirs. Often underpaid and underappreciated, artists give words and sights and sounds to the feeling's others have but can’t always name. Art can be disregarded as a luxury until someone crashes into love or loss and then it becomes imperative that they find a story or picture or song that they can point to and say that’s what I’m feeling.

As a writer, I don’t tend to see how my work affects others very often but as a reader I know it does. There’s this moment in writing before I spell check and search for synonyms where it’s just me and my voice. The rest of the world stands still, and my fingers just start dancing across the keys until I’m reading what I didn’t know I thought or felt. Sometimes painful and sometimes amazing, when I start to let my fingers tell my story I’m able to create a portrait that others can see themselves in. This may help them understand themselves, those around them, and their place in the world. When I’m open and vulnerable I give others permission to do the same.

Domestic Goddess?

I don’t own an apron, I think a “dash of salt” is a ridiculous and confusing measurement, and fancy ass pots and pans are wasted on me. Martha Stewart I am not. However, early on in the relationship with my husband, Kevin, I decided to fry him a steak. I tend to only cook meat in the oven because cooking on the stove top makes the smoke alarm go off but we all do crazy things when we first fall in love.

I arrived at Kevin’s place with the steak and he provided me with cooking instructions, a fancy ass pan, and a splatter screen. The recipe seemed simple enough. Oil and warm fancy ass pan, rub meat spices on the steak (gross!), and cook each side in 5-minute increments until done. Cool, I could do this. 

About 15 minutes later I went to find Kevin and told him the steak didn’t appear to be frying properly. He walked into the kitchen, froze, and then covered his mouth to try and hide his laughter. “Oh, honey”, was all he could get out.

Everything had started off fine. I had oiled and warmed the fancy ass pan correctly and rubbed the meat as needed but that’s where I fell off the correct cooking path. Sitting on the stove was the fancy ass pan, splatter screen, and steak but in the wrong order. For some reason it seemed reasonable to me that the correct order was fancy ass pan on the stove top, splatter screen sitting on top of said pan, and the steak sitting on top of the splatter screen. Basically, I was steaming the steak with oil.

I am actually quite intelligent but in some areas of life it’s like I’m new to the party. I once knew this guy who was incredibly intelligent. He read Nietzsche and studied Latin and Greek but sometimes went to his university classes with his shirt on backwards and inside out. That’s me in the kitchen. All backwards and inside out.

It's Not Really About the Milk

FADE IN:

SUBURBAN HOME – NIGHT

 

WE OPEN on a modern suburban kitchen. We see Molly (partner 1) stirring a pot on the stove with a toddler in a highchair and infant bouncing in her arms and Sylvia (partner 2) comes in wearing a dishevelled shirt carrying a briefcase.

 

Molly

Did you get the milk I asked you to pick up?

 

Sylvia

I forgot.

 

 What do you think an effective response to this would be:

 

a)Molly: What do you mean you forgot the milk? I rushed home from work to get dinner ready and you couldn’t even pick up milk?!

 

b)Molly: You never do anything I ask you to do. Remember last week when you said you’d fold the clothes and I found them 2 days later still in the dryer?

 

c)Molly: Ok. Is there a reason you couldn’t pick it up?

 

(Hint, it’s not a or b.)

 

I get it. It’s the end of a long day and both of you are exhausted trying to be the employee, partner, and parent so it’s easy to fall into the habit of anger and defensiveness. But honestly that’s a needlessly exhausting way to deal with conflict that usually ends up with no one feeling heard and everyone cranky as f*ck.

In my experience being able to answer with choice C is a lot easier if you come into conflict, or possible conflict, trusting that your partner is not trying to hurt you or make your life harder. (And if they truly are trying to do those things, the issue is much bigger than forgotten milk.)

 

For me it’s all about intent. My husband and I both share the belief that neither of us would intentionally try and hurt the other person so there’s a lot of leeway given. When you start to show up to murky emotional situations with empathy and curiosity instead of judgement and accusations an interesting thing may happen. You may realize that a lot of their emotions and behaviour aren't really about you. It’s about how they were in traffic for an hour, had a disagreement with their boss, and they’re worried about how to keep paying the mortgage.  A lot of conflict seems to be about wanting to really feel seen, heard, and cared for. 

15 Years...

    His love feels like a calico purring on my chest in the late afternoon and tastes like chocolates wrapped in gold foil. He is soft with his words and firm with his forgiveness. Slow with judgement and quick with compassion. His hugs make me feel heard and his kisses can make everything blurry. He taught me to soften my gaze when looking inward and has helped me rewrite so many of the painful stories I’ve built my life around.

        

    My love looks like true north on his internal compass and sounds like the soulful rendering of an R&B ballad. I am soft with my guidance and firm with my honesty. Slow with disapproval and quick with tenderness. My hugs make him feel safe and my kisses make him unravel. I taught him how to create a safe place for vulnerability and inspired him with my strength.

    Our love sometimes feels like the moment between the end of an amazing performance and a standing ovation and once in awhile it feels more like the sporadic clapping after an awkward performance but mostly it feels like home. The best and worst parts of us fumbling together trying to create a life that is more than we thought it could be. We’ve created a love with the space to fall apart and rebuild over and over, each time coming out a truer version of ourselves. 

 

         Happy anniversary, my love.

A Love Letter To My Female Posse

About once a month I get together with some lovely ladies for dinner. Sometimes we’re with our spouses but more often it’s just us. There’s something almost magical about having a posse of ladies behind you no matter what. When we’re together we don’t need to be the caretaker or organizer. We don’t need to be mom or wife or daughter. More and more I’m seeing the enormous mental and emotional load woman carry around and how heavy and lonely it can be. The responsibility we’ve taken on to keep those we love as happy and comfortable as possible, no matter the cost to us, can seem enormous at times. I feel like a bit of a fan girl to be honest. So, this is a love letter to all the amazing ladies that fill my life.

 

I cherish your ability to create genuine connection. Whether it’s over coffee or cocktails there’s no moments of awkward silence. Often there’s laughter and silliness but sometimes there’s tears and angry rants. There’s no competition, jealousy, or pettiness. Just a warm space to be raw, honest, and ourselves.

 

I’m amazed by how much sh*t you can fit into one day. Your color-coded iPhone calendars with everyone's (EVERYONE’S) activities filling up the days looks daunting. Dropping off kids at school, dance, band, hockey, all the doctors and dentist appointments plus work schedules. There are literally no days without a dot to remind you which roles you need to fulfill that day. Wife, mom, daughter, employee, sister, friend and sometimes all of the above. Even my calendar has a lot of dots without any kids so I can’t even imagine how utterly exhausted you must get and yet you keep going because the sh*t needs to get done.

 

I’m honored to be a witness to your messiness. The imperfections you may try and hide from most of the world provides the richness and flavor to our relationship. I’m humbled when you share all that makes you feel broken knowing that we’ve created a space safe enough to hold all that shame, pain, and heaviness. 

 

What I wish for those ladies I love, and those I don’t know, is that you can see how spectacular you are. How you are often the foundation of your families, sometimes even the extended ones, and how you carry that with grace, patience, and even a little humor. If I could come to each of your houses and celebrate how wonderful you are I would, but honestly there’s just not enough days in our calendars without dots. 

Greetings From a "Selfish", Child-Free Woman

 

    Controversial topic I know. Let me add some more formula to that reproductive fire. I’m not really a kid person. I know, I know. How could I, someone with ovaries and a uterus, not enjoy being around children?! It’s not that I find anything inherently wrong with children. I happen to care a lot about a select number of children. It’s that for a number of reasons I just didn’t want to spend my life surrounded by kids and for that reason some parts of society have deemed me as selfish. Talk about a loaded description for a woman. We’ve been socialized to see selfish as one of the worst judgments that can flung upon us. Martyrdom seems to be the gold standard.

     

    I’m going to share a few reasons I chose not to have kids. And yes, to some people they’ll seem selfish and trivial and maybe, just maybe that’s ok. Perhaps other people’s judgements aren’t my business because in the end they’re not really about me.

 

1)I find a lot of children to be very overstimulating and exhausting. These are two of the biggest triggers for my bipolar disorder, which is not particularly well controlled even with meds, meditation, yoga, walking…all the things. So, not being triggered in the first place is the best way for me to manage my bipolar symptoms. 

 

2)I spend a large chunk of my time focused on what I want and need and I’m not ashamed of that. Because of this I’ve done a lot of things that I may not have had time or space to do if I had children. So far, I’ve birthed a brewery with my husband, self-published a book, and learned so very much about myself. It’s 1pm on a Thursday and I’m in a café drinking a caramel frappe, listening to 90’s hip hop, and writing about why I don't want kids. Tonight I'll spend an hour or so practicing piano which is my newest creative focus. I love the freedom to focus on myself and what I want to accomplish in life.

 

3)My husband and I are my top priority. Because we don’t have children there is a lot of space for us to explore ourselves and all aspects of our relationship. Space for growth, change, and creative endeavours are important parts of who we are. 

 

I am by no means saying that not having kids is somehow better than having them but for some of us what we need and want in life just doesn’t jive with prams and playdates.