Failures

We don’t like to mention it.  As a matter of fact, I don’t believe I’ve heard this word in conversation in a few years.  Who even wants to utter the word?  It’s like the terrible, awful.  It’s like a nasty, despicable, horrible word.  When my kids were younger and they said something unkind I would tell them, ‘it looks like there are frogs and roaches and snakes coming out of your mouth.’  I think that’s how we think of failure.  It’s a very bad word.  It’s an unmentionable word.  Who wants to say, ‘I failed?’  Who likes to say, ‘oh yeah, I tried and failed at….’  It feels cruel and harsh and heartless; even if we say it of ourselves.­­­

But failure can be enlightening.  When we fail, and we inevitably look back, we can see so many things that we never could have had we not taken that road.  It can bring tremendous opportunities for evaluation and self-correction.  It can also give us a deep personal insight.  If we fail at whatever, won’t we at least have the chance to try again if we want to?  Won’t we be able to choose different next time?  If we don’t fail, how could we ever know what’s right?  What’s better?  What’s more convenient? What works?  What makes sense for us? We truly learn from our mistakes. 

­­And what about the byproducts of failure?  The consequences?  As a woman and a mother, I have failed plenty.  I thought of my divorce as a failure.  I think most people do.  Not because of what I did or didn’t do as sometimes we aren’t given a choice in the matter.  But because the result was the end of the marriage.  Something I never wanted.  I ached at the thought of my shattered dream of an intact family; a broken future.  I grieved over my children going back and forth between homes.  The images of becoming a dysfunctional family tormented me for months.  But even though the ex and I didn’t make it as a married couple, I still have a little family.  I have two children who are the biggest blessings in my life.  In this case, I would never think of doing something different.  I would do it all over again.  Every single solitary step taken to walk down the aisle with that man because the failed marriage yielded my forever family. 

Today I give thanks for all the failures.  Not because so I’m proud of them, but because I know many of them were openings for my personal growth and blessings to me and others­­. They brought me to where I am now.  They taught me be thankful and to do better.  To be a more productive individual.  To be a healthier mother, daughter, sister, friend, and human being.