Hitches Along The Way

Of things that don't work out as aspected

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

I didn't get it.

There's been many of these but this is one of the things I really wanted, and I didn't get it. I want to say I failed, maybe that'll be more direct - drive the point across - but it seems a little too final.

A lot of things haven't gone my way but they did not hurt as much or were not so hard to accept as this is. Maybe because I didn't bet so much on them. But this? God knows that I put my all to it. The test runs were excellent and what remained was the final deal to seal everything. I remember preparing for this and being confident. I even lauded myself a very great deal and said to myself that when we talk about the proverbial two heads, I am one of the people who has them. Now to digest that those two heads didn't come through is proving to be a great difficulty.

See, egos were bruised. In fact, they were seriously wounded. This is a first of it's nature for me, and it is hard to come to terms with something so alien. How does one deal with failure anyway? I think I don't know how to deal with it. What make it worse is that I cannot point where it went wrong.

I go about things feeling less than confident and get them. One of my best friends told me not to do that; not be doubtful of my abilities. He gave me a mantra he lived by in undergrad, "No matter the economy of the jungle, a lion can never eat grass." Well, this lion ate it.

In other circumstances, I would have been tempted to say that maybe the lion is actually an antelope, but not this time. I don't know how to fit the words in this context quite yet, but like this same friend told me, this is but a setback. It does not define me nor does it take away from any of my brilliance.

Here we have him, the ever-supporting guy in my corner.

Here I'm just echoing these words. They haven't sunk in yet. Just like when I got that paper, placed it in my bag and went to on to the next thing on my to-do list. Trying to go on about my day like I hadn't seen what that paper said yet- that went only for so long. In no time, I was longing to get home, see my mother, then crawl under my blankets to cry this out. Things feel better after a good cry. - Like I felt and did then, I saw the words in that text message and packed them in some corner of my brain. These are words just floating without meaning for now. When they do, I am certain that I will bounce back and give it another go. It is in this moment that I am reminded of the words Raptor, another friend of mine, posted “I will fail my way to success.” I saw these words and resonated with but not as deeply as I do. I surely will fail my way to success. Hopefully, not the same kinds of failure.

It feels a bit ridiculous when I think about being sad about this one thing when I've had several great things happen not long ago. They are still are happening. So, why should I be this sad? Why can’t I have it all?

It is still a very fresh wound. I don't know how to go about dealing with it. I hope time heals it. Until such a time that I'm over it comes, I hope that this documentation serves as one of the things that lighten the heaviness in me.

How do you deal with your losses?

I'll be looking out for your input.

-A