Failing Quite Phenomenally

Since 2010 began, I ended a relationship everyone always told me to hold onto tightly. I quit my job as a standout copywriter in Nebraska to come to Chicago and swim in a sea with the other million people who work in marketing. I left friends who I’d been close with since my first day of college. I gave up my swanky studio apartment and come-and-go-as-I-please lifestyle to live with my parents for two months, and then alongside two others in a small apartment downtown. And, finally, I was diagnosed with something incurable, yet treatable, that I had never even heard of before receiving “the call.”

Man, I thought John Cusack said 2012 was supposed to be the year shit hit the fan?

Nonetheless, I’m convinced right now that if I wasn’t so worn out (Sunday – Thursday) or drunk (Friday – Saturday) before going to bed, I would have faced the fact that I have yet to feel any degree of at home or at peace since returning to Chicago. But thanks to my daily agenda and social calendar working in tandem, I’ve been able to avoid reality pretty regularly and keep my chin up.

But just when I think it’s all quiet on the crazy front, I remember I have an audience – and they want answers.

Evidently, I’m more or less a Ringmaster coordinating some grandiose circus known as My Life. And everyone from my closest family member to my most estranged acquaintance somehow has a ticket to this madness, whether I like it or not. And in their seats, as they sit back and watch the show unfold, it has come to my attention that they are all expecting the elephant to just flat out squash me, or the ring of fire to take my head off. But, as time goes by, they see one stunt after the next pulled off with precision and poise. And by the end of the show, they want to know how I did it.

Fair enough, considering no one is in a rush to orchestrate any madness of their own, right? So I share. Not just because everyone wants to know what life is like after peril, but because I love storytelling. As such, I found that the more I dished on things like my breakup or an outpatient surgery you’d think was alien research, the more I realized…I am the worst case scenario. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What I’ve come to realize is that by sharing one fail after the next, I’m really trading you a “heads up” on life in exchange for one of the best compliments one could ever get in life – being called an inspiration. And because I’ve been hearing that a lot lately, I now know there’s something very right about the things that have gone wrong with me.

And that alone puts me at peace, at last.