I once heard someone say, ‘if you have never failed, you have never lived.’ Surely I couldn’t understand what that all meant at the time I heard it. I mean, who wants to fail, right? I definitely didn’t want to fail. I wanted and still want to succeed. I want to live a life that’s worthy of me and exit this side of eternity knowing I did all I could do. There was a challenge however. I had no idea what success looked like. I had assumed it was having a vast amount of money, a number of cars, a specific occupation (like being a doctor), fancy cloths, shoes, bags and what not. I had assumed having all these things meant one was successful. What was worse, I had no idea how to get these things or be a successful person so I settled into the life that had been defined for me. I went to school, read a few books, came out a lawyer. I do remember times as a kid when I would stand in front of my mirror with my comb in my hand doing my version of Mariah Carey’s ‘always be my baby.‘ *sigh* Fun times. I actually thought I was going to be a model or a singer on an actress but somewhere between dreams and reality I had to ‘grow up.’
I tried to be an adult. I tried to settle into a 9-5er. I tried to be stable in my relationships with the intention of bagging me a husband. I tried to do things my friends and family liked so I would be accepted and loved for all time. I tried to silence the voice of my passion. Heck, I even tried to look like a serious person. I tried and tried and tried but it still wasn’t enough. I had a hole in my being, something in me was broken and needed more than a quick fix. Some deep pit that none of these was filling. At some point I even tried to bribe God that if He made the void I felt go away, I’d be a good girl forever.
All of these failed.
Woefully!!!
