Welcome to the Deep End

During my early days as an undergrad, while in a conversation about some of the summer projects I was working to set up, one of my professors made the comment that she hoped when her daughters got to my age that they turned out just like me. She meant it as a compliment, which is why she was clearly taken aback at my involuntary and absolutely horrified response of “dear God, why? I wouldn’t wish that on ANYBODY.”

To be fair, I knew what she was getting at. My friend was referring to someone who tried new things, stayed involved, worked hard, and was always seeming to push forward. The one who didn’t adhere to the traditional way of thinking, who shot creativity from her fingertips and rallied the people around her to achieve amazing things. In other words, the person a lot of people told me I was and the person I wanted to be.

But what she didn’t (and realistically couldn’t) take into account was to get to that point, one has to overcome the cacophony of thoughts, values, insecurities, motivations, and outright neuroses crammed into the six inches between their ears. And my head is only five inches, so you can imagine it feels a bit more crowded. Then add to that the external factors and baggage that trigger the aforementioned cacophony, and the discussion gets a little more interesting.
Outsiders tend to see and focus on just the end results of an individual’s successes or failures, not the circumstances and trials and hard work and sometimes pure luck that got someone to that point. Yes, there are perks to being me, and yes, I often get to be one of those narrators in life who have interesting stories happen to them. But one doesn’t see are the long nights spent foregoing sleep to keep a project running, or the battles to get the approvals or resources needed to try something different because the powers that be don’t want to venture outside their pre-established box. What isn’t seen is the frustration of having to power through something that needs done when no one else around will help, or say they will and then bail. You don’t see the delicate ballet of trying to balance your dreams with classes or jobs or family or all three, only to feel badgered by people who you don’t see as often about why you personally aren’t doing more.¹ Most importantly, what isn’t seen is the continual back-and-forth between the people who truly believe in you and the ones who will do everything, wittingly or not, to keep you down at their level because they’re too afraid to step up and pursue their own dreams. It’s absolutely exhausting.

And we certainly don’t make it easy on ourselves. When we aren’t being inundated with cues about how important it is not to fail at work, love, or life, or measuring ourselves against the cultural ideals of success for whatever country we happen to hail from, we’re measuring our back-stage selves against the highlight reels of our friends, peers, and colleagues. In a 2014 article for PsychologyToday.com, blogger Ray Williams cited research from Edinburgh Napier University that showed 12% of the users studied said their Facebook site made them anxious, and many in the study said they felt pressure to come up with inventive status updates. Why? Let me provide a real life example of what showed up in my news feed, in order, when logged into my personal account one cheery Saturday morning a few years ago (and I swear I’m not making this up):

• -A high school friend had just posted about her engagement (cool; I was engaged at the time, so I felt her excitement);

• -A childhood friend posted his last “unmarried” breakfast before his wedding that afternoon (nice. Surprised he was getting married before me, even by only a few months, but no worries);

• -A college pal just found out she was pregnant (hmm, now I’m feeling that biological clock ticking);

• -Another college pal just had her first kid (Cool. Fine. It’s alright, I don’t really like kids anyway);

• -One of my closest friends growing up was in final tux fitting before going to receive an award from a New York broadcasting association (I. Am. So. HAPPY.); and

-A few miles away from our journalist of the year, a former colleague was posting from in front of the UN building before she went in to deliver a presentation on mothers and peacebuilding efforts around the world (Baron found me a few minutes later in a makeshift blanket fort under my desk, shoveling McVities in my mouth and mumbling quietly to myself about what to do with my life).

And I had been feeling pretty awesome about my accomplishments up until that point.

This isn’t to say social media is terrible and we need to isolate ourselves from our fellow human beings; to the contrary, I more often find the tools useful for bridging the gaps in communication between friends trying to maintain relationships through global time zones. My point is that we all, every one of us, have that backstage self that very few people are allowed to see. Going back to my journalist friend, for example, the Facebook post I mentioned showed him “behind the scenes” at his absolute best, but I’ve also seen him (literally) down in the mud, fighting against red tape and tight lips to get the real story, working with whatever limited resources he had at our local news stations back home to do the best job he could.² He earned himself a position in New York, and I’m damned proud of him. But a lot of people will never, ever get to hear that side of the story. Same with my college friends – lots of people “liked” the photos and were happy to bombard them both with joy and unsolicited parenting advice, but only a handful knew about the complications and frustrations that went into those conceptions. Most of us don’t like to talk about our vulnerabilities and struggles because we feel it proves we’re somehow behind the rest of the pack (Brene Brown wrote some excellent books on the topic), but it’s not true. It’s that fear of failure, the fear of being open and honest with others and with ourselves, that sets us back from being who we want to be and doing what we want to do. The scary things is too many of us will go through life without realizing the commonalities between our stories.

There’s a reason Steve Jobs said most overnight successes take a really long time – game show host Monty Hall has been often quoted as taking twenty years to achieve his. Biz Stone, one of the co-founders of Twitter, took about ten. Musician Lisa Loeb took fifteen years for her “overnight” success, and actor Adrien Brody took seventeen and a half. The list goes on. As I’ve written previously, this is the year I decided to stop holding back and start doing the things I always wanted to do – deep end time. The time to stop worrying about success and failure and the weird little thought trains colliding around in my head. The time to trust someone else (or, more appropriately, five someone elses – it seemed only fair to spread the crazy around) to keep me motivated and progressing, even on the days when I’m scared and tired and considering faking my own death to take on a new life as a shepherdess in the German Alps.³ And the amazing thing is, somehow, it’s working.

But going back to my friend’s comment and my rather harsh response: I still wouldn’t want those girls to turn out just like me. I’d want them to find their own path, their own passions, and, yes, their own struggles to help mold them into the women they’re supposed to be – the women they want to be.

***
¹My favorite irritation: “It ONLY takes five minutes to…” on days where I hadn’t even had five free minutes to take an unhurried piss. That often results in my singing happy little songs about slapping people with various implements found in my current range of vision, which entertains my students greatly.
²Some of my earliest TV appearances were being a “Thanksgiving shopper” for pieces he had to stage, film, and then produce on his own – all under a tight deadline. I just happened to be nearby when he needed someone last minute, and thus essentially got to play the role of a plot device in someone else’s story.
³This started back in college and is actually a good thing, because it usually means whatever inner stress and frustration I’ve been dealing with is about to crest so I can transform into an amazing badass. People have often asked why I have to fake my own death in this scenario, and the professor’s daughters mentioned at the beginning of this post answered it best: “So people will be quiet and not go looking for her, DUH.” The beauty of Norwegian fjords notwithstanding, I gravitate to the Alps because 1. they’re still pretty, 2. most likely better fare for the sheep and goats I will tend, 3. yodeling, and 4. have you SEEN me in an Alpine hat? I am f**king ADORABLE!