When You've Failed: Dear You

Congratulations: You!
12:00-1:00 p.m.
Biggest Conference Room in the Office

The meeting invite stares at me from the corner of my desktop. I scowl at it. My lips twist and eyes narrow. I have thoroughly failed in my planning for this meeting, and I’ve known of my failure for months. I’ve pondered this meeting in my head, rolled my choices along the roof of my mouth, worried the cracks with my tongue.

My company has a wonderful women in business group that my mentor hosts, and one of my dearest work friends is the Treasurer of Dreams. Many moons ago we had a meeting where we wrote our future selves congratulatory notes for the spring about our achieved goals and stored them in a box on her desk. I had two: moving to Seattle, and getting engaged to Lennon.

Lennon and I broke up in November. I suffered a psychotic break after I didn’t get my “perfect fit” job late this winter.

The past year has been hard on me. I have the gray hairs to prove it. But I started seeing a therapist, dyed my hair pink, and focused on my present self instead of what I thought my future should be. The box I thought I could cram myself into was not a viable future. The one I’m looking at now might not be either, I won’t know until I’m there. I have to remember this for my meeting in 70 minutes.

My friends Allen and Charli have a quote on their wall by their workstations (he's a programmer, they're a poet): Fail faster. Make better mistakes.

It's a quote about working tech; we create innovation by failing. It applies to our creative and "normal" lives too. If you're never failing, you're not pushing.

This is my new letter from present me to present me. I hope you, dear reader, get something out of it too.

Dear You,

Embrace the failure. These failures mark your survival, another groove worn into your hull of mistaken navigation and unclear signs. You are still here, and you are still fighting. Your eyes are open now, and you’re starting to understand that what you don’t agree with, you don’t have to do forever. You get an exit plan.

Now you’ve made an exit plan, and taken the very first steps towards getting there. The difference between this one and the other ones? The new plan is organically achievable; it runs into your blood like spring breezes. It grows flowers from your fingertips.

I am proud of you, even on the days when we mark high distress and shame on our Moodscope cards. Our plan may fail, more dreams may be broken, the plate might yet fall from your hands and shatter on the kitchen floor. Remember that plates and cakes are replaceable, but you are not.

You always say you never need anyone to save you - now, you’re living it.

Congratulations on avoiding trains for another year.

Congratulations on finally understanding the love song of your city, and writing yourself into it. Of wearing into your life with patience instead of hammering it like that’s going to do something besides make it weaker.

You lived. You win.

Love,
You

The Anticipation is Palpably Painful

I am waiting for a phone call that will not come for another three and a half hours.

While I was in Washington last Monday, brushing my teeth, I got a phone call from a WA number. Thinking it was my host confirming our lunch plans, I picked up the phone with the toothbrush still in my mouth.

It was not Grace. It was an Amazon recruiter. Who wanted me to skip four phone interviews and come into the office for an interview “since you’re in town anyway.”

Well, there are a lot of things I do not know about in life, but one thing I do know is that you do not say no to a big company when they are asking you to interview for a job you don’t yet have, but are already extremely passionate about.

The interviews went okay. Parts of them went swimmingly, and parts of them I disconnected and couldn’t pull it in. When they asked about times I disagreed with something that my customers did, or something that happened in a project. I am not great at disagreeing with how things are done, because often when I disagree in my career, I’ve done it wrong. I’ve been told simply to hush. Because I don’t know what I’m talking about yet. Sometimes I am pulled into a meeting and corrected.

I’m not great at talking about myself, and I am a rambler. I should be more succinct. I should have been more succinct. It would have allowed for deeper questions. Maybe I should have taken a Xanax those two interview days, but I wanted a sharper edge - not the fluffy girl who gets by easy, cloud-like in her glory.

I emailed the hiring manager today asking for a timeframe of when I might expect to hear about next steps. She had not responded to my previous emails of follow-up questions. She asked if I had some time this afternoon to chat.

So I’m sitting here, expecting a rejection. Anticipating this rejection. Oscillating between being zen about it, and coming close to tears the next minute. I am very good at internalizing “everything happens for a reason.” I am also very good at grieving. But I am so tired of being teased by the universe. I am tired of, with each rejection, re-committing to New York and re-realizing that I’ve put a band-aid over a sucking wound that this landscape cannot heal.

This is not the blog post I wanted to write. I had a dalliance on my vacation - I wanted to write you the beginning of a love story about mud flats and misty forests and really big dogs. I wanted to tell you maybe not a wife after all. I wanted to tell you about how you should only kiss sober, touch each other sober. Remember what potential feels like without the help of bourbon because I had it for days at a time.

They can’t say they want me. It’s only been three days. And when you ask for a timeframe response to hiring, they come back with a time frame, not “let’s chat.”

Let’s chat about my dreams for what you’re building. Let’s chat about moving vans and relocation assistance; let’s chat about the things I can’t allow myself to think about for the next three hours. Give me a timeframe. Please, give me a timeframe or welcome me home.

UPDATE: I did, in fact, not get the job. I failed in my success metrics and analytical capabilities, as I have failed in both those things for every job I have applied to. I am unsure where to go from here besides to business school, which is supposed to start on April 5th.

Positively Wrecked

Things with my mother are officially back to normal.

I know, because even though I'm a nervous wreck and stressed to the point of passing out about my MTEL on Friday, I was able to call mom.  We both said sorry and talked about our problems.  I sympathized with her recent illness and issues with her new doctor.  She listened and gave me good advice about my myriad woes - Some to do with finances, a lot to do with the MTEL, and more to do with the ridiculous social situations stressing me out and distracting me from studying.

So, I'm a total train wreck.  I'm sitting here, crying at my keyboard, in my pajamas.  Worried because in less than two days, I have to pass an English MTEL with nothing but a Theater degree, a personal driving interest in language and literature, and whatever flashcards I can come up with.  I am not prepared.  Over the last few weeks, I've managed to get into enough personal drama to make it impossible to concentrate on studying until these last few days.

On the other hand, I shouldn't worry.  I've never in my life had an issue with standardized tests.  I've never scored less than 80% equivalent on a bad day for any state-run standardized test.  English has always been my best and favorite subject. Theoretically, there is not a large chance of failure.

But I have a lot riding on this.  Something like the rest of my life and career of choice.
The MTEL costs one hundred and fifty dollars each time you take it, I have to pass the English MTEL to get accepted into grad school, and I have to take the standard Literacy & Communication MTEL as well.  I'm honestly not sure what I would do in the case of failure.  "Try, try again" is a lot easier said than done when the first try already puts you three hundred dollars in the hole on unemployment.

But I never really let much stop me before.  I really shouldn't start now.  So I'm going to finish my tea and take a shower.

Then I'm going to make some damn flash cards.

Wanted: A Wife

Em and I parted ways this evening. We hadn’t been together very long, or even seeing each other in any kind of “this is my girlfriend” capacity, but I did like her enough that I told my parents she existed. We had a lovely catch-up dinner (hadn’t seen each other in three weeks - now there’s a tip-off), and parted ways really simply, with kindness and care for each other. Ironically, we were both going the same way on the subway, which did not happen once in the short weeks we were romantically linked.

I said after my last break-up that I needed to be alone for a while, I wanted to experience what that was like. And I do. We also broke up because I have a not-so-sneaking suspicion that the pendulum of my sexuality has swung very deeply into the heart of Ladytown, and it's about damn time I allowed myself to explore that. So I'm doing that, too. It's been a fight - sometimes I feel disingenuous to myself, but I know that if I don't take the time to do it, I'll regret it later.

It struck me as I walked home over the icy sidewalks of my less-than-stellar neighborhood that perhaps the reason I’ve never been alone is my ease of independence. I prefer challenging environments and being partnered, to me, is much more of a challenge. I’m good at selfish and self care; I’m bad at taking a partner’s feelings into account - I either go too far, or not far enough, and it’s a daily crapshoot as to which. I know being single doesn’t always encourage me to grow as a person. It does encourage my creativity, but I often don’t take advantage of that extra time. When I do, I’m holed up and unreachable in a way my friends find frustrating.

I’ve been in search of my other half since college. It’s always at least in the back of my mind. I have been ready to build a life with someone else, and I have had ample opportunities and many not-so-false, but less than stellar, starts. Maybe I’m not ready to get married - I absolutely do not feel like sharing my bedroom with somebody else (maybe that’s because it’s so small?) - but I am ready to know the person I want to walk into the future with.

It doesn’t matter how firm the logic inside of me says that love is something you build with your hands, I believe that when I meet my wife, I will Have Met My Wife. There will be some inescapable magic there. She will be inescapably human, and our bond wholly sacred. I don’t expect it to be easy, I know we’ll fight because being partnered doesn’t come easy to me.

I see glimpses of her in other women, I saw pieces of her in Em.

It takes me a long, long time to open up all the way and love somebody with the intensity a long, loving relationship deserves. The last person to crack me open that far was Grace, and it took me until last year (two years after her wedding to another person!) to realize I had been in love with her the whole time. It still took her a year to pull me apart and set herself in my bones. This is why I don’t like dating - who is going to have the patience for that?

I hate dating. I find it exhausting. I always have. It feels inorganic and forced. I don't really like going out in public all the time, I prefer quiet intimacy. (Plus, nobody ever messages me and I am always pursuant. I loathe pursuit. I am too shy and awkward for that shit - if you want me, come and claim me, or whatever.) I really liked dating my friends in college, and I wish I had more single friends now so I could date them instead. It can be so easy to fall in love someone you already care for. If only I wanted a husband.

I am frightened that I will meet my wife, and she won’t be able to wait. She won’t have the patience I require, she won’t have enough love left to give me. There will be too much sex in the beginning, and not enough heart. I need the heart. Grace was the most organic relationship/friendship I was ever in; we started with poetry camp, spent three months of long lonely winters sending letters across oceans, and grew together through a lot of post-college bullshit. We relied on each other and the only thing we were (and are, frankly) afraid of is life without the other. We never had the pressure of a romantic relationship, because we never said we were in one.

I think about my friend Anna, who walked out on her boyfriend, saying “It’s been a year, you either love me or you don’t.” He spent three weeks drinking scotch and crying in his cups until he showed up on her doorstep and said he loved her. He said he knew he’d made a mistake the second his door closed behind her, it just took him that long to find the courage to ask her home. They’ve been together for almost five years now. Will that be me?

Is it already?

We Accept The Love We Think We Deserve

Though this was originally written as my annual Facebook note reflecting on the year, I thought this would be a good place to share it too.

What a year.

My mind struggles to grasp the year in its entirety: there has been so much change and growth that it's hard for me to step back and really see what this year has brought.

Let's think about where I was at the end of 2012: in Amsterdam, reaching for my independent self as I prepared to transition yet again, from Italy to London, one au pair job to another. In the months leading up to that trip, I had been dumped, discovered the power of Don Miguel Ruiz and, through his words, found my own power and sense of self, which I had freely given to those I had loved for too many years.

I made commitments to myself for 2013, the content of which were not as important, I found, as the act of committing to myself instead of others. I found comfort and strength in my promises, not because I kept them in the ways I'd initially set out to, but because of their greater underlying principle: that 2013 was going to be the year I put myself first, and stopped diminishing who I was through compromises made in, and for, relationships that did not serve me in the same ways I was willing to serve them.

No more would I, Jade Forester, serial monogamist and Queen of the Rebound, get myself into a codependent, dysfunctional relationship. No more would I choose saving others above saving myself.

2013 has been the year I learned how to save me - from myself, mostly, but also from those who would seek to de-rail the progress I'd made at the end of 2012. By the end of last year, I'd thought the thoughts and was talking the talk. In 2013 I walked the walk.

As with every path I've started down in my life, it didn't go quite according to plan - I didn't completely swear off dating, or sex, and whether that was the right choice is of course moot at this point. The goal was the find out who I am when I'm not being defined by my relationships with men. Not only to find out who I am, but to figure out if I even liked that person - and if not, take positive steps towards becoming the woman I want to be, a woman I can respect and love more than I loved being in love or planning my future. I had to start living in the present and be happy doing so.

Though I wouldn't be so arrogant as to sit back at this point and say "I'm done," as if a person's growth is something that is ever complete, I can say that I achieved my goals for 2013. I found out who I am when I'm not busy being a girlfriend. I found out that I'm pretty awesome on my own, and that I have the most amazing family around me - and I mean not only those that I'm related to, but those who came into my life along the way, and stayed. I found out that I don't need to go looking for love; I am surrounded by so much I can hardly breathe, I am so overwhelmed with gratitude at the blessings I have been given.

I realized I didn't know myself well enough in the past to have patience with those who fell short of my high expectations, or the clarity to realize the depth and breadth of the ways I contributed to others' unhappiness. I am working towards being more self-aware and to change old habits and assumptions, and am quietly optimistic about the future.

I have never been so humbled by any year as I have this one, though I'm sure many of my closest can think of others that my have been more outwardly momentous. But the journey from child to adult isn't always greatest in the milestone moments: the distance between student and graduate, or Maine and the UK, was not so great as the miles I travelled within myself this year, as I searched to discover and redefine who I am and what I want.

I am exhausted, yes, but exhilarated. I have never felt so ready to take on whatever life throws at me. Never have I had so much to be thankful for, or as many reasons to smile throughout my day. Never have I felt so fully my capacity for good, or my strength for change, or my ability to achieve my goals.

I don't have any resolutions as I move into 2014 beyond this: keep it up, Jade. Remind yourself of how far you've come, and what you are capable of when you open your eyes, your mind, your heart, to what you need.

Show yourself every day that are worthy of love - and that means loving yourself. Remember Stephen Chbosky's words from The Perks of Being a Wallflower: 'We accept the love we think we deserve.'

Show those who support you how much they mean to you whenever you have the opportunity to do so. Remember how much they've done for you, and don't forget it or take them for granted. Remember how it felt when you withdrew yourself from them, and don't let it happen again!

Open yourself up to falling in love again, even if it doesn't look or feel like it used to. If you don't want the next relationship to end like all the others, you probably don't want it starting like all the others. Take your time. Breathe. Hold on to yourself without holding yourself back.

Remember the four agreements:

1. Be impeccable with your word
2. Don't take anything personally
3. Don't make assumptions
4. Always do your best

Have a Heart: My Relationship Is Not a Convent

I was really sad today. One of those “I could walk in front of a train” days - they start happening in November and follow until mid-Spring. These days often turn into me doing not-so-surreptitious research on joining a convent (usually Catholic, I’m traditional if nothing else. Though I’m not at all Catholic.)

I’ve fantasized about being a nun almost my whole life, and I absolutely blame Rodgers and Hammerstein, and bloody Maria von Trapp.

One of the most poignant moments for me as of late was about Mother Superior and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? She’s a devil - she’s an angel - she’s a giiiiirl! And with that the nuns promptly decide that perhaps Maria does not belong in the convent and perhaps Mother Superior should hire her out to be a governess to a cranky widower. “You’re not really cut out to be a nun, Maria,” they say, “Being a child in a tree and looking down at our quiet, holy lives does not prepare you to make these vows.”

The more important part of the story comes later when Maria gets frustrated and comes back to the convent, citing that it was too hard and she couldn’t get through to the children. Mother Superior tells her to “climb every mountain” in one of my favorite solo songs. At its essence, the song (and Mother Superior’s role) is to encourage Maria to stop hiding from her problems. A convent is not built to keep your secrets, or for you to ignore your unprofessed love of the Captain, or to… hide. (We know because Rolf found them in the end anyway. I know, it’s a true story, but hush. I’m making metaphors out of molehills.)

Relationships, like convents, are not good places to pretend you don’t have problems. A habit cannot save you from your reckless dreams, and a relationship can’t save you from the problems you’ve been trying to avoid your whole life.

Maria has wild abandon. She’s not suited for a quiet life of being a nun. I have issues that look like whatever the opposite of wild abandon is. I’m not suited to be a wife right now.

So, unable to afford the therapist I want to see, I’m borrowing a leaf out of my own crazy book and turning (after 15 years of holy abandon, practicing almost entirely by myself) to organized(ish) religion. Because I’m craving so much solitude and contemplation, I started going to the weekly dharma gathering at the NYC Shambhala Center. I don’t know a lot about Buddhism yet (beyond what I can glean from the Beats), but I am pretty great at sitting still for long stretches at a time and focusing on my breath.

Today we did a love-kindness focused seven-part guided meditation and I was really bad at it. I had trouble focusing on our meditation phrase, “May you find happiness.” We started with a benefactor, then ourselves, then a neutral person, then someone who annoys us, then all the people in the room, and then the whole universe. Not only did I have trouble picking a benefactor (because there were too many!), but I had trouble picking a person I was neutral towards, and an even harder time picking someone who annoys me. People who just “rub me the wrong way”... I don’t have very many of those.

I could’ve used more love-kindness focus - I ended up mostly annoyed with inability to focus.

Anyway, once I abandoned the phrase and focused on drawing the warmth from my heart and center, I was able to radiate compassion for the universe like the sun. I can’t imagine what I must have looked like, but I felt like a sunflower. My face raised towards the ceiling, shoulders relaxed, smiling like an idiot. Wrapping the world in love and kindness like a babe.

In our brief one-on-ones, I spoke with a young woman who had the opposite problem - she couldn’t focus on extending to the universe, but individuals didn’t give her too much trouble besides the crying. She felt so deeply towards her friends and benefactors, loved them so much that she cried. I cry a lot too, but usually only when people I love leave me, or I’m just too sad to find another expression.

I liked her - she reminded me of Maria.

Starting Over: Switching Career Paths at 27

My husband and I got married in April and thought it would be a great idea to move all the way across the country two weeks later. We drove from Massachusetts to Florida in almost exactly twenty four hours (it was twenty four and a half) and we set our roots down in Fort Lauderdale. We love it here. I haven't worn anything but flip flops since May, and it doesn't look like they are leaving my closet anytime soon. Back home I was a Software Analyst/Consultant. The job description is as glamorous as it sounds. I was the "middle man" between my company and the hospitals we supported. When they had an issue with their software, they would call me to complain and I would have to figure it out. I spent six years doing that right out of college, and it might just be the complete opposite of what I had envisioned myself doing when I grew up.

 

With all this said, I had moved to Florida fully intending on picking up a similar job within a hospital setting. This time I wouldn't be the complainEE, I would be the complainER. As fate would have it, being a Software Analyst was just no longer in the cards for me. I went on a few interviews, got chased by a few recruiters to do traveling work (just married, not interested), and I probably sent in over 50 applications with my resume attached. After three months of some solid job searching, soul searching, and day dreaming, I realized NOW is the time to switch to my dream career. And what might my dream job entail you ask? Well...

Dog grooming! But in a broader sense... DOGS. Dogs are what I want to spend my days around. Why? Because they are so much cooler than humans. They are cuter, they judge less, they have more fun, and they are just so damn happy all of the time. Do you need any other reasons? I have a dog-son, Tiger, who is a Pit Bull/Boxer mix (we think?) who we rescued almost two years ago. He is my inspiration for switching career gears. I have loved dogs my whole life, but until I had him I never fully thought about working with them as a source of income. And now it makes SO MUCH SENSE.

I did some research and found a school ten minutes from my house that offers a certification program to become a Professional Dog Groomer. After even more research, I found that you don't get licensed to be one, and that most people actually never get certified and just open up a shop, sometimes with little to no experience... which is frightening. (Do your research before bringing your pooch anywhere!) 300 hours is required by the National Groomer's Association, and I found that is pretty much the standard across the entire country. I took a tour at the school, which is also a full-time grooming salon, daycare, and boarding facility as well. The instructor was so friendly and personable, and as soon as I walked in I had puppies jumping all over my legs. Um, HI HEAVEN. Nice to meet you.

I decided since I was unemployed and could afford to do so, I would just do my 300 hours full time. I go Tuesday-Friday from 8:30 to 3:30, with an occasional Saturday thrown in. I am about 175 hours into my certification so far. And... I love it. My instructor is also a certified Vet Assistant and was a trainer for many years prior. With all of her knowledge, I am really learning a lot about not only how to properly groom a dog, but also about their temperaments, anatomy, history, and training.

I've also made some new friends:

 Spike... We got intimate in the bath a few times.

 Daisy... She's my BFF when she comes in

Lani... Our daycare "mascot"

The Golden Girls... Mimi and Laicee

Louie... Seriously with those eyes?! STOP IT.

I gotta say, at first it was nerve wracking. They give you all of the tools, which were included in the tuition, and I had never used 95% of them. The first time I picked up a clipper, it might as well be the first time I used chop sticks. Just completely foreign to me. I learned quickly though, and although I am only a little over halfway through, I am doing full head-to-tail grooms. Typically, students don't get to work on the heads until later in their hours, but I am just that good. What can I say... toot, toot.

This is Biloxi... A Standard Schnauzer that I received an A+ on!

I have a little over a month left of classes, and then I can look for a job doing something that I care about. Do you know how amazing it is to say something like that? Some people never get to say something like that, and for that I am so grateful. Some people spend their whole lives paycheck to paycheck, doing a job they despise, for all sorts of circumstances. I am so fortunate to have the universe show me a lesson by denying me a position that I hated, and making me shift my views on what I deemed "work". The universe has it's own way of balancing you out sometimes, I truly believe that. And I would never had made the switch without the support and push from my amazing husband. He really told me to go for it. And honestly, I don't know if I really would have if he had not been behind me on this 100%. I'm forever grateful to him for that, and of course many other reasons.

Some days I sit here an think I could be sitting at a desk somewhere, counting down my hours, and fielding phone calls and meetings. But no... Tomorrow I'll get to school and be greeted by a bunch of wagging tails and wet noses all ready to get pampered and pretty. I really love where I am at right now. And to get all mushy on you right now...