It doesn’t always look like success

It was a summer evening on Whidbey Island a couple of years ago. We were on a relaxing family beach vacation, and I was breaking down in tears.

My sister had just shown us a video of an amazing scarf
acrobatics dance routine that she had choreographed to the song Thunder by Imagine Dragons. It was
stunning and beautiful and powerful and after watching it, I was a wreck.

I found a private place to cry and I wept. I was in the
throes of raising my two young kids, obsessed mainly with the prospect of
naptime when I would be only responsible for myself and no one else. I hadn’t
seen much recognition of late in my writing and I was always tired and there
was a lot of work and more work and nothing to show for it. My brother had just
received an award for excellence at work, if my memory serves me right. Envy rarely
fails me on those points. And they don’t hand out parenting awards, in case
anyone was under any delusions. Ahem.

Seeing my sister accomplish something beautiful and artistic
at that moment in my summer was enough to make me feel like a wad of dirty
paper towel, soggy with self-pity. I was writing, sure, but was any of that
going anywhere or being recognized?

I’m a 4 on the
Enneagram personality test (a 4w3 if
you want to get technical), which has not surprised my friends who are familiar
with the test. I call the personality type The
Moody Self-Absorbed Image-Obsessed Artist which is definitely not the
official title. It’s possibly more accurate, though, at least in my case. The
way people view me matters to me. A lot. And I assume they see me the way I see
myself, which is tough when I’m wearing my Harsh Critic hat.

But you know what? Having kids softens some places that were
hard before (and no I’m not referring to my abs…).

For example, my son has loved books ever since he could
snuggle on my lap and listen to them. He still cries out with the joy of
finding buried treasure every time I bring home a new batch of library books. I
started working with him on beginning literacy at age three because he was
showing interest at the time, not because I wanted to push him early. And
then…it got hard. He fidgeted, he jumped around, he dragged his feet as much as
he could. He’s six now, he can read some basics, but we haven’t spread our
wings yet.

Is this within the
realm of normal? Yes, I’m just disappointed. I just wanted it to be sooner.

Did you fail him as a
teacher?  No, he’s just not an early
reader.

Does he hate the idea
books and reading now? No, he still adores books.

So, basically, you
still have room to grow when it comes to patience. Yes.

Despite my yearning for my kid to embark on his own reading adventure with the skills to chart his own course, I am slowly learning (and re-learning, for myself) to view his journey with compassion. I can see his heart is in the right place and his love for learning is anything but quenched. It’s just not his time for reading yet.

Success, whether it’s recognition on a public platform for
an achievement, or it’s the joy of breaking into a new dimension of knowledge,
or it’s finishing a long and arduous project, always comes as a short blip at
the end of the dry, painful, discouraging, or just plain monotonous road. And
I’ll go ahead and say it’s okay to cry and drop your bags and sit there for a
while blubbering how it’s not worth going on. Just make sure to call someone
who won’t let you stay there.

Compassion seems to me to be the saving grace in those
places when we’re just not getting anywhere near our goal. The key isn’t just
diligence and sticking to my guns. I’ve done that and I’ve felt my soul shrivel
because I’ve done it with the merciless grit toward my own finite energies,
ignoring my subconscious emotions.

I don’t believe my heart is stupid or irrational anymore. It
holds deep secrets and dreams and if I’m gentle with it I can turn over the
earth to find dormant bulbs underneath, sleeping life that’s ready to crack
open. Life that needed the dark, dreary, wet and cold to mature its readiness
to bloom. Compassion here is the patience of decaying bark and frost to wait
for the first green leaves to push through the colorless soil.

Escape Pod will be turning
my short story “Inheritance” into a narrated podcast. It’s the tale of a woman
who receives an unexpected gift from her deceased grandmother, while walking
through the grief of repeated miscarriages. It’s about family, memory, and
healing. It’s deeply personal and much of the content came from the darkest
chapters of my life. Now it’s being turned into something beautiful.

I think what I want to say is it—and “it” is whatever we’re
dealing with today—really doesn’t need to look like success. Whatever it is
that we’re doing or struggling with or wishing would hurry up and change, let’s
look hard and see if we can find compassion for that person who isn’t doing
what we wish they’d do, and see if we can extend the tenderness even a tiny bit
toward ourselves. We can be faithful and also be brokenhearted. We can wait in
the dark and still emerge into the light. We can inhale hope, even when the
smoke of despair is choking us.

It doesn’t have to look like success. Maybe it will someday, but if that’s not today, think of a young, bright intelligent little six-year-old boy who loves books but hasn’t yet figured out how to read, and feel that glow of pride in your chest knowing that one day it will click for him, and the best way he’ll reach that breakthrough, is through patient, diligent love to guide him.