I sat for 15 minutes today, which feels like such a victory, even though it is short my original goal for the month. Goals should be smart, attainable, etc–but how do you move forward after failure?
I gave up once before, after art school, because I couldn’t visualize a viable path forward as an artist, and I was then, as now, deeply depressed and not being treated for it. I have tried to find a doctor that I am able to access and who is on my insurance, but to no avail. That’s for another month, but the point about failure was an important one. I’ve failed to win awards or had opportunities pass me by because of resources, I’ve not gotten the job… Those bowed me down low, but they did not crush me. Ever since my layoff, though, I’ve learned new and crushing ways to fail. First year of graduate school apps (and the third and fourth): all no thank yous. My book, my latest chapbook: dudsville. All the teaching jobs: nyet. So, in this face of these it is easy to imagine that I was wrong all along: this is not the path I should be on. Or, rationally: everybody hurts and all creative endeavors are shot through with the stink of the failures that came before and that’s how we recognize them. And: they can’t all be winners, kid. (More importantly: you can’t always win.) But that’s the rub. My rationale mind has split for the coast without me (over seven months here and I still haven’t been to the coast).
It is raining, still. The yard is a muddy, weeded, overgrown and inhospitable mess. The house still has no trim. My office space is overfull and I cannot see a path to the shed yet, unless I want to go $10,000 more in debt. And after May, I’m almost completely out of supplemental work. I can’t stop thinking about these things over and over until my throat starts to tighten. Even when I sit, and try to follow my breath, it takes me to this most anxious and repetitive heart of me. Not even a year in, and I am already failing hard at making this house a home for myself.
So, how do you move forward after failure?