Every year of distance that I gain from my twentieth birthday, the emotional growth that accompanies that time seems to amplify exponentially. The way that I remember seeing life and the world around me from ages 20 to 22 was dramatically different than from 22 to 24. Maybe its a testament to increasing adult mentality. However, in someways it seems like I not only have a changing out look, but that someone has allowed me to take off the lenses I use to view the world, and rub them down with a clean cloth. Or even yet, in the past six months, I can almost begin to say that it feels like someone has allowed me to take the very eyes from my head, and given me a new fresh pair. These new eyes have vision that has not been scarred by the wounds of my past, but somehow has retained the wisdom proved by those scars.

Unfortunately, I am not suggesting that I suddenly have arrived, or have my life figured out.  If anything, the more distance I get from the tender age of 21, the more issues I am stumbling upon. And it is this continual realization leads me to become more in touch with the places that I am horribly flawed. In some ways, I fear it leaves me nearly paralyzed.  Almost as if my issues are a sleeping giant that I do not know if I should wake until I have a plan in place – complete with a pack of matches, a map, 4 meters of climbing webbing, a Swiss Army Knife, some flares, and maybe a few gallons, of water…you know, in case my life erupts into World War III and we have to go into McGuyver style survival mode.

The most interesting thing is that I would think the more in touch I became with the places where I am tempestuously broken, the more I would become hardened or deflated in my soul. I would think that the surmounting issues would pile themselves in a way that would cripple any last sense of vitality that I had left. However, it just hasn’t turned out that way.  I feel like there has been a softening within me, much like that of a refined piece of leather that has been pulled this way and that way, and conditioned. Stretched far away from the stiff brittle piece of hide that it once was, and forming into a beautiful, valuable garment.

I am finding that I like myself a little bit more. I find my very own thoughts a bit more interesting when I have the resolution to voice them with conviction. I find that my failure are slowly becoming less like tremendous catastrophes, and more of an opportunity to respond to the landscape that my actions have painted for me. 

In my very first job out of college, I was given a responsibility much heavier than I had ever worked with. I was supporting several hundred business partners all across the nation for a large international company. And I remember the alarming chill that coursed through my veins when I realized that I had made THE biggest mistake of my life, and it had been broadcast across the United States. I remember quite literally asking my supervisor at the time if I was allowed to crawl under his desk, and remain there until the end of the day. But later that afternoon, when discussing my mistake with my boss in a “How Do We Salvage This” meeting, my boss said something very profound. She wasn’t a very good boss, but this was one situation where she hit the nail on the head. She turned to me and said very purposefully “Jenni, sometimes in life, the important factor is not that you made a mistake. Mistakes are inevitable. But what is important is how you respond to the mistakes you have made. You have an opportunity here to show us what you are really made of – to pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you can. And to me, that speaks more of your value as an employee, than if you never made the mistake in the first place.”

In that moment, her words were extremely valuable. She was giving me permission to fail. To make mistakes – even to make mistakes that could be felt by management all across the country. And even though I dont work for her anymore, her words still resonate within me.

 Coming from a background where I didn’t really feel like there was much room for failure, that if I did, the potential consequences could feel dreadful, the idea of failing is one that scares me. Maybe its that I dont trust- don’t trust God, don’t trust other people in my life, don’t fully trust myself. Maybe its something in me that needs to keep all things pretty, clean, in order, successfully humming like a finely tuned machine. But when I am really honest with myself, those ideas repulse me. Where is the life in that? Where is the vitality? Where is the growth? I think there is more vigor in thrusting yourself out there to be rejected, investing all of your money only to go bankrupt, or desperately trying but somehow missing the mark – than there ever could be in a little life of cleanly order.

Maybe I need to remind myself of this a bit more. That its ok to be wrong. That it’s ok to make mistakes. And that if I am going to fail, I might as well do it with conviction, and commit to the ideas that I am advocating for.  Somehow I need to convince myself of that. Maybe I will walk around whispering the words softly under my breath “Jenni, you have permission to fail….you have permission to fail…you have permission to fail…”