megfowler.com

Most of the jobs I’ve done since I was old enough to work involved four things:

1. Dealing with people.
2. Thinking on my feet.
3. Leading by example instead of by virtue of position.
4. Responding to various crises with a sense of humour and patience.

And I did pretty well with all of them. It feels strange to be anything other than self-deprecating, but even I know I made things happen.

Not that I never made mistakes. Wow, did I make some mistakes. I’m just as good at making mistakes as I am any of those things. Maybe better.

Fortunately, I always worked with some awesome people that balanced out my idiocy when I dropped the ball in small or spectacular ways.

And I felt good about what I was doing, even when my hours were long or the challenges were stupidly large. I could do it. I did do it.

When I look back on my life and on those roles now, I find myself wondering where the hell that girl went.

You know, the girl who believed that pretty much anything was possible with effort and hope?

The girl who could stand up to anyone without giving in to her temper, because she knew what she believed?

The girl who knew her value and what she brought to the table?

The girl who listened well, who noticed, who loved, who showed compassion?

I don’t let her speak up much anymore.

I mostly just tell her how hard things have become, and that her chance will come again when all of this passes.

Somewhere along the way, I let people who hurt me be the largest voices in my life, and let the good voices slip into background noise, including my own.

Somewhere along the way, I decided that what I wasn’t and what I couldn’t do defined me more than the gifts I already had.

Somewhere along the way, I began to believe things couldn’t change.

Somewhere along the way, I forgot that lying down is a terrible first step in moving forward.

Somewhere along the way, I told myself that the girl who had those four skills — and more! — didn’t really have them anymore.

But we both know that’s bullshit, she and I.

I’ve just allowed procrastination and fear and history and paranoia and anger to dump on me like a heavy snow, while I sit in the drift, waiting to freeze.

I want to dig out.

I want to warm up.

I want to trust myself again.

I want to know in my own heart that health problems, that weight problems, that bad relationships, that work screw-ups, that financial mistakes, that handling things badly, that infertility, that arguments, that everything I’ve said that I wish I’d never said…

… well, that none of those things are the End of Meg.

I can’t go to bed another night wondering what new portion of my life is going to break in the morning, or how I’ll manage to mess things up again.

I want to go to bed knowing that whatever comes, I’ve got it. I can do it. I’m on it.

Even if I wake up feeling sick.

Even if I’m bumping my head against a stack of mistakes a mile wide.

Even if people don’t have the faith in me right now to make things happen.

Even if I can’t change some things, I want to believe I will change everything I can.

I want to stop asking myself how the hell to stop shutting myself down, and just STOP.

Is it as easy as just deciding to?

I know it can’t possibly be, but then again… maybe it is.