Gone Wrong

My brilliant, beautiful, infallible friends have gotten it all wrong. You know, those people I turn to? They messed up. They disappointed me.

People will disappoint from time to time, the same way that I did today. I guess it looks like Karma.

I had to do a thing. A really big thing. Before I did the thing I was flooded with positive predictions: "You can totally do this!" "You'll be awesome!" was all I heard from everyone. I hated hearing it. It was totally useless. Who were these people to tell me something they couldn't possibly know? What good would such vacant expressions do me?

Well, it turns out, no good at all. They were wrong. I was not awesome. I did badly, as I always do. I don't even know that their mode of affirmation didn't do me harm by setting me up not only to disappoint myself and those involved, but to disappoint all the well-wishers too.

And now, when I'm in so much pain from my disappointment all I hear are people arguing that my experience is somehow wrong: that I couldn't possibly have done as badly as I say I did. Is it because they can't deal with the possibility that they were completely wrong?

I don't care. I don't care why they can't simply accept my account of what happened in my own life, as the only person of them there. I don't care why they don't believe the honest and well-meaning feedback I got. I don't care. But I know that it just makes me feel worse. I'm in so much pain right now. I feel like I've let down my committee (I know I did - they said so), and I disappointed myself. I feel small, pretentious, and incapable. And they're just adding "unreliable" on top of everything. "Don't believe Nancy" they're saying, "she doesn't tell the truth." As if other people's feelings are some kind of objective myth that if you ignore suddenly become not true.

So these things are going on my list of really not awesome things to say to people:

1) You'll do awesome!
Especially if I have no way of knowing whether it's actually true. And since I don't own a TARDIS, I will never make such ridiculous claims. If you want to hear how awesome you're going to be without evidence, just because you need blind faith, ask somebody else. If you want to hear how much I will love you whether you do well or badly, then ask me. If you want to know that it's going to be okay, either way, then ask me. If you want an eternal perspective on our successes and failures, I will dive into that conversation with my whole soul. But I will not tell you that your life is going to be peaches and cream. Because it's not. Because you will fail. And that's not only okay, but brilliant.

2) I know I wasn't there, but you were awesome!
Because "I heard you had to be picked up by paramedics ten meters into the marathon, but at least you crossed the finish line!" just doesn't really mean anything except ironically. I'm not an authority on anything I haven't experienced. If you say you sucked, then you sucked. But I love you, and those ten meters that you ran were lucky to feel your tread. On the other hand, if I was there and you ask, then I will tell you what I saw, regardless of your own experience.

Looking for someone to turn to when a thing goes horribly wrong, I see this: what I really need is self-sufficiency. I need the power to tell myself truths and be believed, because getting angry at all the kind and loving people who are just trying to help doesn't do anyone any good either.

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