She Didn’t Succeed, but I’m the One Who Failed
My mother has failed a lot.
That sounds harsh, but I didn’t mean it to. I’m not ashamed of my mother’s failures. I used to be. I used to hate the way she was always trying new things. I hated how she was always failing.
Now I feel differently. Now I wish I had been proud, supportive, and encouraging. I’m ashamed of myself, of the way I acted in the face of both her courage and failure.
When I was growing up, I felt like our lives were always chaotic. We were barely scraping by, but my mom was always trying something new. We moved a lot, and my mom always had a new job or no job at all. She was always starting a business, a new habit, or some new savings scheme. We were always starting over, and things were always going to be better this time.
From my childhood viewpoint, trying new things never made anything better. From my viewpoint, taking risks lead directly to failure. I grew into an adult who is afraid of change. I grew to be someone who hated to take risks and who has a slight disdain for people who do, especially my mother.
As I became an adult very little changed. Despite all the failure my mom still tried new things and I have only grew more resentful and bitter about it.
Every Sunday my siblings and see our mother, and every Sunday she tells us about her latest scheme. We moan and groan. We roll our eyes and laugh. We try guessing what she’s decided to start up now. We go around and wonder what her next failure will be.
There was an auto repair shop she started with my stepfather out of our garage. Next thing we all knew she had business cards and a separate phone line.
There was the cupcake thing. She bought huge cooling racks to line her kitchen walls and churned out up to 100 of them out of her home oven. She shoved one after another into my face and asked me to help her research kitchen space and a stand at the mall to rent.
And there was the home daycare where not one kid was signed up, but chairs toys and educational supplies were bought.
There have been others things, habits and lifestyle changes. She’s been a vegan, started crazy diets, and taken pills she bought online help her lose weight. I can’t tell you how many times she’s lost her job or looked for a new job for no reason.
She tells us about these crazy schemes and dreams, and we try to talk her out of them. We bring up all the negatives, and we make her feel small. We don’t mean to hurt her feelings, but that doesn’t make it okay. We were only trying to help, at least that’s what we tell ourselves.
You see, my mom just takes too many risks. Not only that there is always this urgency to that plans that I just don’t understand. Why can’t she can’t start slow? Why can’t she can’t start small? She has to be all in, and she has to do it before she thinks it through.
Despite all her risk taking and inability to plan anything, I am ashamed of my reactions. Yeah, I was mad. I wanted my mom just to be normal. I wanted her to find a good job just go there every day like everyone else. I wanted my mother to stop failing.
I may or may not be justified in my feelings, but I don’t think I am in my actions. Yeah, when we were kids she should have been more thoughtful but now that I am an adult I could be of more help to her. I should have acted differently. I shouldn’t have let it all push me too far to the other end of the spectrum.
I wish that I had her fearlessness in the face of failure. I wish I had at least learned how to fail better by watching her mistakes. Now I can’t try new things, I can’t think outside of the box, and I can’t understand why people would want to. I want to do more with my life too. I want to be a different person, but I can’t shake those old feeling of fear and anger.
I don’t know how to fail.
And I don’t know how to help other people fail.
I wonder now if my siblings and I had been more supportive my mother would have had a better chance.
It seems I have gotten my secret wish, though. She has been working in a regular job little while now. She hasn’t tried anything new in a long while either. I think she is miserable, and I hate it. I hate it because I may have contributed to it. I hate it because she wanted to be more, and I should have wanted more for her.
After a few years of self-reflection, I can now say that I am proud of my mother for standing up to us as much as she did. I am sorry that she ever had to. I have no excuse. I was cruel, and I wish I hadn’t been. Now all I can do is say I am sorry and try to learn something from my mother and myself.
From myself, I learned that I am clearly capable of being mean. I am capable of not wanting other people to attempt the impossible. I don’t want to admit that the impossible might not so impossible after all. I am the one without vision or courage.
I am capable of thinking that there are things that change is too hard to direct consciously. I am capable of feeling uncomfortable in the face of success and personal fulfillment. I am capable of discouraging others so that I ever have to face that my biggest failure is having never tried.
From my mother, I learned so much more.
I learned that there are new ideas all around us and that if you keep looking you can find them.
I learned that sometimes you shouldn’t tell people about your dreams. I learned that, and you shouldn’t listen to anyone who laughs at you or tells you what you can’t do.
More than anything, though, I learned that my mother has passion and courage, and I am proud of her failures. All of them. I am proud to say I come from a woman who tried to do more. How many people can say that? I wish I could.
So, maybe I can try to take a few risks.
Maybe I can dream big too.
Now I encourage everyone I know. I am supportive, and I think there is nothing anyone can’t do if they work hard every day. I help people focus on making progress rather than trying to be perfect. I want everyone to do what makes them happy.
There’s no road map to success or happiness. You set out on a path with little more than an idea and a bit of faith. But, and I hate to sound so cliche, like all things, it is the journey, not the destination.
I can start by being there for my mother next time she needs me to be supportive and encouraging. I really hope that there will be a next time.
