Fearsome and beastly it lurks in your periphery. It seeks and leaps, waiting for its favourite cue to coo: “I told you so...” I have these galling flirtations with failure daily, do you?
It’s the fraction that you will not be the person you want to be today, and probably won’t be tomorrow either. It’s the feeling you don’t deserve that trophy. That partner. That promotion. That perk. It was never meant to work.
Forming an aching tombstone buried deep inside it sits to remind simply that you’re not “good enough”. Why are you trying/why are you here/ why have you even bothered/ you’ve got everything to fear. It’s the toughest pill to swallow and the thickest thought to ignore. It turns momentum to treacle faster than you’ve ever felt before.
It’s a solid, unnerving conviction the universe didn’t conspire to create this rare moment for you, but preferred to plot and ruin it. It’s all been one sweet mirage and you drank up the lot. Failure is fool’s soup served to suggest there’s nothing more than this, despite you thinking you otherwise.
Yet, failure is not wise. It’s fickle and fleeting. For some it’s a detour, for others a route to growth. It’s a trial and error path toward hope: I hope I’ll become better at this/ faster at that/ smarter at this/ a winner at that. It’s full of thorns and spawns further fear that festers if you let it.
But you won’t, because you’re here.
Failure is common. It’s shared. A line between neither here nor there. A border crossing from where you currently live and breathe to a greener place where you want to be. Your passport is a yes, or a no. A stop, or a go.
F is for failure, I told you so.