Epic Fail(ure)

I started this blog 11 months ago. I forgot about it. I have tried my darnedest to keep up some semblance of writing, but I just can't seem to do it anymore. Can't imagine why. Maybe it was school? The four kids? The household? The two jobs?

Forget about a piece of good writing, I was settling for being able to string two thoughts together.

I had become rather good at starting things and not finishing them. I had taken a good look at my life and for some reason, I had felt like a complete failure. This has been an issue with me for quite some time. Freud would have some opinions on the matter, but there comes a time in our lives when we all have to stop pointing the finger outward, look in the mirror, and take some responsibility for ourselves (although how easy is it to blame someone else for how crappy our lives are)? If your life stinks, chances are, you are to blame.

So I figured I would change that about myself. I was going to stop feeling like a loser. I was going to be somebody. I would stop feeling unaccomplished once and for all. I would stop feeling like life was passing me by at a million miles an hour while I just sat there and watched. I was going to get off my ass and do something.

It has worked for the most part.

Successfully complete the Police Academy: check.
Get a job after graduation: check (am I working as an officer? No, but whatever I'm still CERTIFIED to be one SO THERE).
Get a job as an instructor at Karate: check.
Get my ass in gear and be a better wife to my husband: check.

Bit off more than I could chew: BIG double check.

But I set goals for myself and accomplished them. I went out and did something I never dreamed of doing. I did it. And apparently, I have inspired many others around me to do the same. I never knew that I could ever motivate anyone to do anything after having lacked motivation for most of my life. Now I see that I am motivating people everywhere and they are thanking me for setting them on fire. It is unbelievable to me.

I resigned from my job at the school. It was the one thing I figured I could let go because we were drowning here at home. I was drowning. It was just too much. I was working at the school, coming home to make dinner and do laundry for an hour, then going back to work at the dojo, or train, to finish my day. My house was trashed, the laundry was a mile high, the kids were stressed out because Mom was, and my husband felt like he never saw me.

That's no fun.

The job at school, well, I loved it and those kids I knew loved me (except for most of the 8th grade, but that's for another day). I grew attached to many of them and they grew attached to me. And in a few, I could reach in places where nobody else could reach, or maybe hadn't thought to try, or even cared to reach. In four months, I saw some come out of their tight shells and be a little less shy. I encouraged the more outgoing kids to approach the ones who were sitting alone and knew just the right way to do that without the lonely child thinking that the others where doing it out of pity. I gave the "difficult" kid jobs to do that made him feel important. I talked to the sad kid and made him happy by finding something great about him. The kid who gets frustrated easily by others; made calm by asking him to take a walk with me and talk about stuff he loved doing. I could see a child that was having a bad day and turn it completely around in about 30 seconds.

I had kids cry on my leg when I left that job. I felt like I failed them by leaving. Here comes that feeling like a failure thing again.

I fail at trying not to feel like a failure.

When I'm not feeling like I have failed myself, I am feeling like I have failed others. That's messed up. But I have a feeling this is how a lot of people-especially women-think.

You feel like you have to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, be great at your job, work hard, be the perfect housekeeper, be the best cook, be the perfect athlete, the best volunteer, host the greatest parties, and smile while doing it all.

If you think you can do all that, you will fail and it will be epic. We can't and say it with me now, we CAN'T do it all and still be happy and if you can, you are lying to yourself. Something will give somewhere at sometime. It always does. I thought doing everything would make me complete. It would make me this wonderfully well-rounded person. If I made goals, accomplished them, and pushed myself do and be everything I could be, damn it I would be happy!

I think I did so much in this past year just to prove to myself that I could. The truth was, that I didn't believe in myself. I had absolutely no faith in my own personal power as a woman. It took me 35 years to realize that I don't need to do everything to feel complete, or have self worth. Have I achieved my dreams thus far? You bet I have. Every goal that I set for myself in these past 5 years has been accomplished. I wanted to become a worship leader, I became one. I wanted to finish school, I did. I wanted to get a job that I loved, I wound up with two. My kids are happy, my husband is over the moon still in love with me so much so that we are looking to add child number 5 to our family next year.

I am no failure.