Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it; I failed.
When I set up this blog before the new year 2018, I’d promised myself that I would be consistent with it. That I would take no chances and make no excuses, that come what may, I would write, and I would post something on this blog every Sunday evening. I did do that. After 2018, I gave myself permission to widen the cadence and only post once a month, every 27th. I did do that, too. Throughout 2019, and 2020, and into 2021. Come what may; an exchange semester, uni deadlines, spare time commitments, holidays, work, I’d always made time for my writing. I’d have reminders on my phone, calling me to order and telling me to “write!!”, or “Blog post!”. I took great pride in being consistent with this, and in having done it for such a long time.
And then, a few days ago, amidst moving to another country and my new course starting and volunteer work and making new friends and a writing course, and what felt like a hundred other open tabs in my mind, it suddenly was twenty past midnight on the 28th of September and I realized that I had failed.
Can you imagine! Having done this for close to four years now, and then to fail! How could I have forgotten. I’d thought of it throughout the day but then simply did not think of it again because my mind was bogged down with all the other things I was supposed to get done.
I was so disappointed with myself.
When I told my friend, she simply asked: “But… can’t you just post something tomorrow?” And at first I instantly said: “You don’t understand!”, but when I gave it some thought, it suddenly seemed that I don’t understand. That it’s absurd that I would be so hard on myself for having missed an arbitrary deadline that I have set myself for years now, an internal pressure put on myself only by myself, to adhere to some strict rule simply because I had once said that this is how it should be.
It’s so easy to be hard on ourselves, to expect ourselves to be the best always, to continuously reach the goals we set ourselves. It’s so easy to be disappointed with ourselves, to get hung up on our failures, instead of celebrating the wins, too.
This is something that I want to work on this year: to have more grace for myself, as much as I would for a friend. To hold myself close when I fall short of mine or anyone else’s expectations, and to tell myself that that’s okay and that I can do better tomorrow. Of course when I say that, I’m not only talking about small things like not posting on your blog on the exact date you said you would, but also about the big stuff, about disappointing others, about miscommunicating, about not setting boundaries, or crossing others’, about being wrong, getting situations wrong, about judging too quickly, or not quickly enough, about forgetting things that you are supposed to remember, or just, quite simply, making mistakes.
I’ve always been so scared of failing, but actually, there is nothing to be afraid of. Everyone messes up sometimes. And we all deserve the grace of others and, most definitely of ourselves, when we do, if we are ready to acknowledge that we have made a mistake, and are ready to do better tomorrow.
So, even though late, this truly was a flora’s rambling, and this, after all, is what this blog is for – see you on October 27th (hopefully).