read this when you feel like a failure 💙

spoiler: I'm writing this for myself, too 😬

There’s a U2 song that goes, “There is no failure here sweetheart / Just when you quit.” I've held those lyrics close a lot since I’m someone who feels like she’s failing when she doesn’t live up to the high, unarticulated expectations she holds herself to. It’s been a lifeline for me, a reminder that you can’t really fail as long as you keep trying. It may sound like a simple truth, but it’s one I keep learning over and over again.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the show Mythbusters. On the show, the group solving myths had a mantra: Failure is not an option. I don’t remember exactly why they said this, but I know as a kid, I had a huge problem with it. Failure has to be an option, I thought. You have to be allowed to fail! The thing is, I vastly misunderstood what that saying meant. It simply means that failure is not an option because the ultimate outcome won’t be a failure — you keep trying and keep trying until you succeed.

I think these two truths — the U2 song and the Mythbusters’ motto — are really fitting metaphors to explain how we with chronic illness have to function. Failure isn’t an option for us, and we keep going because we literally have to. When I was younger, I’d often get told “You’re so brave” or “I have no idea how you handle it” in reference to my chronic pain and other symptoms. It was hard to know what to say because… I don’t know, I just did. I didn’t know any differently. You handle it because you have to. You handle it because this is your life.

Then there’s the other side of it, too. The side where you feel like you’re failing because life is so difficult for you when it seems to come so easily to other people. Your symptoms make it feel like you’re swimming upstream. You’re always trying ten times harder at things that are a cinch for everyone else. When you don’t have answers for why these things are harder — for why it makes you feel like you’re dying when you run, or why you learned to drive later than everyone else, or why schoolwork feels like an impossible mountain to climb — then sometimes, you assume that the problem is you. Everyone else can handle these things, why can’t you? It must be something wrong intrinsically with you. You must be weaker than everyone else.

At least… that’s what I internalized. I’m still working to excavate those layers, to remind myself that it’s not my fault. (Sorry, Taylor Swift, this time I’m not the problem, it’s not me.) It’s an intensive, every day process of challenging my thinking and fighting back the feelings of failure. It goes hand in hand with the journey of self love that I am constantly on. If you’re here too, you’re not alone. There’s so much to unpack, but there’s so much grace for us.

One last thing regarding that U2 lyric — if you’ve ever quit something, that doesn’t actually make you a failure. Because the thing about quitting is that it’s a temporary state. You can always get right back up again. Whether you’ve set down a hobby like I did when I quit writing for two years, or you’ve just quit showing up for yourself… it’s okay. You can always find your way back to the path. In fact, maybe you never left the path to begin with. Maybe the path was always supposed to be a bit winding and difficult to navigate, anyway. I’m realizing that’s kind of how this life thing works.

With all my love and spoons,

— Sky 🌱

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