I once told someone that I was the kind of person who didn’t really do things that scared me. When this person asked me what I was most afraid of, a lot of different things came to mind, but the word failure is what came out of my mouth. I remember being embarrassed after I said it. I tried to shake it off as something unimportant, something that didn’t hinder me in any way. It was an insignificant, universal fear. The truth is that I have passed up on a lot of things in my life because of that fear. I shied away from opportunities. I was not a go-getter. I stayed in the shadows. I gave a lot of things up. I did not walk through several doors. Many times, I didn’t even knock.

In my first blog post, I talked about what I went to college for. I wanted to pursue something that had lit a spark in me during high school. I took a Creative Writing class my sophomore year with a variety of people who would have never spent time in the same room unless they had to. I felt like another person back then. I was trying to be so many different things for different people that had suddenly come into my life. I hadn’t known real friendship growing up and I was afraid that being my weird, true self would drive others away. I felt like a lost girl with no real identity or voice. I was so busy studying others, trying to find a place to fit it, and saying what I thought others wanted to hear to keep them around.

When I started writing in that class, I felt so much coming up to the surface. It was a mixture of ideas, fantasies, dreams, and deep feelings that I hadn’t expressed to anyone before. To me, it was like stepping out of a hot building and taking a breath of cool, fresh air for the first time, in a long time. In that class, I could write myself on paper. I could write my truths or hide them in stories.

Sometimes in that class, we even shared our writing out loud and I’m telling you, there wasn’t one person in that room that didn’t have something remarkable to say. It was a safe place for all of us, I think. I still remember the comments my teacher wrote on my assignments. She left words of encouragement. I still remember what it felt like when she pulled me to the side after class once and said you know, this could really be something for you. You’re a writer. So much time I had spent trying to figure out who I was, what I was good at, if anything. I had never had anybody believe in me like that before, with so little effort. Her statement, “You’re a writer,” lingered over me like a dream that I didn’t want to wake up from.

I decided to go to college for writing, instead of something else because I wanted to learn from people who had chosen to make their passion for writing their life. For me, it wasn’t about the success or the money. Those things have never really driven me. I just wanted to keep being myself, to express my thoughts, my feelings, experiences, and have it mean something to somebody.

This type of  work and lifestyle connects you to others like so many of the other Arts. You hear that song, see that movie, look at that photograph, painting, read that quote, finish that book, and you are left with something. Whether you realize it or not, we are all connected by the things that give us hope, inspire, strengthen, or sometimes make us feel really vulnerable or sad. All of those things can help us feel like we are in this life together.

Unfortunately, when I started college, I quickly forgot about all that. I was nervous and was so taken aback by the other writers. I took their unfathomable talent and skill, what made each of them unique and special, and found a way to turn it all into my flaw. I became insecure and I started struggling to find the words to write about anything. Suddenly, I was lost again. I didn’t know where my voice had gone and I was too afraid to find it. Writing was too important to me and I didn’t want to fail so I quietly started to give up. I had some decent writing during those years, but rarely did I ever share it. I never submitted any writing to anywhere.  I spent hours and days, working at accomplishing the minimum of  pages that were required. Writing started to feel like a burden, like someone else’s life, and I was just pretending to live in it.

I graduated and felt a huge sense of relief. I didn’t HAVE to do this anymore. The thing that I had loved so much, that made me feel the most connected, the most free and inspired, was no longer there. My light burnt out and I made my dream become so small so I could put it in a box and I leave it in the pile of why bother?

Sometimes, I think that’s how depression can happen. I think that we lose ourselves when we lose grasp on the thing that makes us who we are, that makes us special, and different. We lose purpose, direction, and hope. We start to settle and give in to our “failures.” We let the voice that says. “You are not good enough,” win. That voice affects everything. It becomes a part of every decision we make or thing we don’t do because why? How could it ever be me that accomplishes this? That finishes this? That creates this on their own? That makes a difference in any way?

That voice had been in my head for a very long time. It found a home in my mind and to be honest it has never quite left me. Instead, it also became a part of who I am. But the thing is, when I completely stopped doing the thing that I loved, I stopped being me. Areas in other parts of my life started failing, even relationships. I lost faith and my sense of self. Once again, I started trying to make myself different things for different people. I stifled my voice and even when that innovative spark finally did hit me again, I did nothing. I let it slip through my fingers several times.

Today, once again, my life is very different. It changed. I changed, but my dreams and desires never did. I realized that I was wrong in thinking that I wasn’t meant for something, just because I was afraid and running from it.

We all have something that is ours. Sometimes we are born into it or it comes up later in life. It can be the hardiest or the easiest thing to find. It can inspire or scare us sometimes. Especially because we might fail at it.

But how can it be failure if and when you’re still trying?

How can we let fear of failure lead us into living our lives as someone we are not?

How can we end up doing something we aren’t supposed to be doing?

Is it ever too late?

We have one life.

Why would we ever give up until it’s really over in the end?

It took me a long while to get here. It took the encouragement and faith of others to not just inspire, but to help make me become a bit brave again. It took self talk and tears. It took the newfound fear of living a half life.

I’m in the beginning of a journey that I have barely just begun and I have so much further to go. I’m still afraid of failing, but I AM a writer. For better or for worse, I won’t stop trying.

 

“How many of us stop short of success on purpose? How many of us sabotage our own happiness because failure, while miserable, is a fear we’re familiar with? Success, however, dreams come true, are a whole new kind of terrifying, an entire new species of responsibilities and disillusions, requiring a new way to think, act and become. Why do we REALLY quit? Because it’s hopeless? Or because it’s possible…”

-Jennifer DeLucy