F is for Failure

-










is for Failure



I hate to fail.
I always worry about failing at life.
I worry about failing as a wife, mother, friend and a just as a person.
I trace my fear of failure back when I was little about 3 or 4. I tried to polish my nails for the first time and I was so proud of my accomplishment. I went to show my mother. I know that in her mind she just wanted to help me but the words that exited her mouth haunted me and it still haunts me today.
She told me that my nails were bad and I needed to do them over. I was crushed. I know it sounds trivial but as a little sensitive kid, it really affected me. I redid my nails and to her satisfaction.  I made sure that I got it right this time.
After that I felt like I always had to get it right I had to be perfect.
I felt like I needed to be the perfect child. I had to do everything right and I refused to fail.
That feeling became a part of me and I pushed myself to excel in every aspect of my life. I became the model child going to school every day, doing what I was told, coming in on time when my parents set a curfew for me.
I became the model student with praise from all my teachers. I read everything I could get my hands on, I had mostly A’s in all of my classes and graduated number 5 in my class.
Yet I knew deep inside I was not perfect. There were so many secrets about myself that I kept hidden. It ate at me and despite all my hard work I felt like a failure all the time.
No matter how great my accomplishment I never thought it was good enough. I didn’t think that I was good enough and so I worked harder to be the best. Anything less than that was failure. The panic and anxiety I felt when I didn’t do so well was more than enough to push me to work harder.
It took having children and therapy before I realized that I had a problem. When I had children I realized that I couldn’t tell my kids they were good enough and it was okay to fail sometimes when I didn’t believe it myself.
So, to push myself I had to face my fear. So when I completed my first novel despite my fear of it failing I published it and made it available to millions of people. Though I was terrified I knew that if I failed I could always try again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Erotic Housewife Checks IN: The Depression of a Writer

-
“You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction if you are not depressed.” ~Kurt Vonnegut Jr We all know the old stereotypes of the tortured artist, the alcoholic writer. They play into the belief that artistic creative types seem to be more depressed or are more susceptible to mental illness than the average person. Those old stereotypes may not have been too far off from many famous authors, poets and painters. When you think of Hemingway, Poe, Keats, Proust and Van Gogh, you don’t always think of their genius. More often than not you also think about their lives and how each one obviously suffered from some mental illness or depression. it almost makes depression seem glamorous, yet it isn’t glamorous to the person that suffers from it. I know from experience. I am not ashamed say that on occasion I suffer from depression. Okay…more often than that. It is something that has plagued me for quite a long time. As long as I can remember, I never understood it. When I...
More Craziness!

I is for...

-
Image
I had written and scheduled a post for today for the Writers of Kern Blog challenge, but something happened this morning and I just had to write about it.   is for... Incomprehensible “You never know how quickly a life can be taken away until you see for your own eyes…” In 7 th grade I remember playing in the gym with my friends only to look over and see a 6 th grader sitting against a window alone. He looked really familiar and then it hit me. That 6 th grader looking so out of place was my uncle, Willie Cobb Jr. Born 4 days before me, he was the son of my Grandfather Willie Cobb Sr. (half black and Native American) and Dora Santana ( Mexican) I know it sounds strange but my mother’s youngest brother was my age. It was difficult growing up to see him as my uncle… but he was. I walked over to him and sat down. I ditched my friends because he was family and he was alone. He had just transferred to my school unbeknownst to me and I...
More Craziness!

My Sexual Journey

-
Image
My sexual journey began at a very young age. I was definitely a precocious child and began to have sexual feelings at an early age. Sex was not discussed in my family but it was definitely going on frequently. There are 9 of us and by the time I was 10 years old I already had about 5 or 6 nieces and nephews. There is plenty of sex gone on but no one was talking about it. So I obeyed the family example kept all my fillings to myself. An early age I use have sexual feelings for select girls. I was very interested in boys but  on occasion I would become attracted to girls. I shrugged it off and thought it was a phase. I prayed it was a phase. Coming from a  Baptist family and a society that says what I felt was bad…I prayed and prayed and prayed. By the time I was in high school I was utterly tormented by my feelings. I hated myself for finding women attractive. I utterly, violently wished that I was someone else. In high school, I kissed my first girl and that drove me in...
More Craziness!