FAILURE AND SUCCESS

I graduated high school, and then college, and then grad school.  Those items I'd deem great success, perhaps the high school event less so.  I found the man I married and made it happen, which seems like it worked out very well.  We created a baby named Emma, who is growing up to be somewhat amazing.  We have a lovely home and two cars and a cocker spaniel.  On paper, those things are all awesome and would make me think that the American Dream landed in my lap.

I am blessed in all of those ways.  I am very grateful for my job and the things that I get to do for money on a daily basis.  The fortunateness of it all isn't lost on me, but then I look at where I thought my life would be and it isn't there.  My college magazine comes in the mail and looking at the class notes of people in my class and the ones before and the ones after....  I'm not there AT ALL.  These people are CIOs of companies, doctors in Malaysia, run their own law firm and pretty much have won at life.

Maybe I am just happy where I am, not trying to get destroyed in the corporate world.  Maybe I am scared to try something completely new (though the whole baby thing was what I'd call "new").  For whatever reason, the networks I have or don't have, the outgoing qualities that I left behind in my preschool classroom... I am just not there.  So, those magazines, when they come in my mailbox?  I drop them like a hot potato, because otherwise it leaves me feeling like a big fat failure, when my life is so. much. more.

What my life is ....is wonderful.  I am a wonderful wife.  I am a wonderful mother.  Despite feeling like a Pinterest fail on the daily, I am decent at both roles.  I am a wonderful daughter.  I am a wonderful worker.

All the days and all the hours that I felt like I failed at everything I did, because I was all of those things.  All at once.  And it's hard to think you're dominating when you're spread out, but I am.  I am dominating it all, and that's definitely a great success.