Fatal Flaws – Not just for Shakespeare anymore…
I have a recurring dream in which I have a brain injury that’s forced me to move home with my parents and enroll in my old high school in order to relearn all I once knew. I wander the halls, feeling like homesickness mix ed with regret and loss. What has happened? What have I forgotten? What do I need to learn?
Then, it rushes over me. I’m forty-seven and I have nothing. No home. No career. No family of my own. I must leave this place and go out into the world once more. I’m frightened. Starting over? Learning everything anew? My mother tells me it’s time. Time to go. The myriad of options overwhelm me. Where will I go? What work will I do?
When I wake, my eyes adjust to the mid-winter sunlight, stealing in from under the shade. Next to me, my husband sleeps. I breathe in his scent, and adjust the cat sleeping next to my legs.
I’ve had this dream many times in the last few years. The feeling of wandering the halls of my old high school mirrors the very real feelings I’ve had about both my personal and professional life: a sense of displacement, homesickness, regret, and loss.
Today, I have my new beginning and I’m in the thick of that adjustment. Cliff and I have been doing the hard work of learning how to parent together and to parent one another’s children. It’s not easy. Actually, it’s hard. Really hard. We often feel unsure, like we’re wandering the halls of a place we know and don’t know all at once, disoriented and dizzy. However, unlike in my dream, I am not alone. We are in it together.
When we got engaged, Cliff’s dad advised us to talk about everything, big and small, given the challenges we would face. We’ve done our best to do so, despite how difficult some of those conversations have been. We’ve stumbled and fallen, wandering in this wilderness of teenagers and their complex moods and behaviors. We rise with the breaking day, though, to try again, because we love one another and we love our kids, with all their quirks and challenges and beauty and gifts. We’ve sacrificed, made adjustments, learned to let unkind words from our teenagers tumble off our strong backs. We’ve tried. And tried again.
My writing career is also like my dream. “Riversong” was first published five years ago. Given how well it did, I had the chance to replicate that success, but I didn’t. I made poor choices and gave loyalty to the wrong people. It hurt my career. There’s just no way sugar coat the facts. They are what they are. Like my brain injury in my dream, it forced me to have to start over.
Guess what? I’m grateful. I know, I’m surprised by that too. What I know now is that hardship gave me insight into what Shakespeare would identify as my fatal flaw. We all have learning to do in
this lifetime – big lessons that are necessary for us to become the person God imagined us to be. My fatal flaw is as big as they come. I am unable to decipher who I should trust, when I should let go of toxic relationships, and how to put my own desires first. Loyalty is fine, but not what I now call blind loyalty at the detriment to my own well-being.
With failure comes the opportunity to examine our motivations and actions deeply, seeking understanding of our contribution to our demise. I learned, finally, the lesson God needed me to learn because of the pain and disappointment. I had to learn how to do things differently in order to survive.
Well, I got it this time, God. I really got it.
Today, “Riversong” is free as part of our* February and March promotional strategy. This afternoon feels like the heady first days of “Riversong”, as I watch it climbing the free charts. For the first time in a long time, I have hope my career will take the turn it needs. I’ve worked hard. I never gave up. I learned a lot about myself. I’ve assembled the right team. This time, I’m not a good girl, but a steely-eyed business woman.
Why share? As always, I believe words have the power to heal. This is my story and by sharing it, I hope to make a difference in someone else’s trajectory.
For now, I wish you moments of clarity that move your life in the direction of your dreams. No matter how low you may feel today, the sun will rise tomorrow, bringing another opportunity for redemption.
*By ‘our’ I mean 16 Hand Marketing. Check them out here: http://www.16handmarketing.com/
