My Favorite Failure

When I was 17 years old I had a white 3 ring binder hidden in my closet that was filled with print outs of places I was going to go to. I was very disenchanted with my senior year of school. So, I spent all my time in the art room or on the computer printing off travel guides. I planned on being a traveling (probably struggling) artist.

I wasn’t that unique, getting the hell out of dodge is pretty much the goal of any high school student from a small town. Especially for kids that don’t feel like they really belong. Part of that was my own fault, I very good at isolating myself due to undiagnosed depression. Depression has you believing that it’s better to not try at all rather than to fail.

I’m pretty sure to look back at your angsty teenage years and recognize the role you played in your own pain is called wisdom or maybe healing?

Wisdom, experience, healing and hindsight let’s me look back and smile at young Kayla. She was so afraid of failing but every failure would lead her closer to her dream life.

My first big failure:

Kayla working at a call center

I went from the dean’s list to just disappearing. In my second year of college I decided if I had to do one more page of busy work, I’d die. So, I just packed my stuff up in the middle of the night and never went back. It was cowardly to not tell my family first and I hated the way it felt. Ghosting like that is much harder than just giving disappointing news.

Dropping out also gave me some perspective about the other parts of my life that weren’t working out. So, I broke off an engagement and moved back home.

My favorite failure: 

When I got back home, I had to get a “big girl job”. I worked in a health insurance call center. There was so much pressure there. All day your every move was being watched, timed and recorded so it could later be dissected. The stress gave employees eating disorders, nervous break downs and drinking problems. They were paying $5 more than my previous job but it wasn’t enough to motivate me to keep a job I hated. My third strike was making an error by saying “and” instead of “or” on a call about someone’s coverage. With in days, I was fired. 

That was the first time I had ever been fired. I cried while filling out the unemployment forms. I thought I was a complete failure.

 Remember what I said earlier about hindsight? Yeah, being fired is really not as big of a detour as it felt in that moment. It took a couple months to regroup and grieve but I eventually had a new plan.

Being fired pushed me to go to massage school, which was something I was actually interested in. I was just too afraid to try it before. It’s funny how fear subsides when you feel like you are running out of options.

Dont settle, Dream:

Massage school lead to energy work, entrepreneurship, and so many other good things in my life. My lifestyle now gives me time to have hobbies and travel. I am so thankful for those experiences, they stopped from settling for things I never really wanted. Teen Kayla would be proud of this life even though I definitely took a different path than what my binder planned.

Journal prompts:

What parts of your life would your 17 year old self be excited by?

What parts of your childhood dreams do you still want in life? How can you realistically achieve that?

How many times was a set back really just a push in a different direction?