When I was in kindergarten, my dance teacher asked if I wanted a turquoise or hot pink skirt for the recital. I told her I wanted turquoise, and she gave me hot pink.
When I was in middle school, I wanted the boy from my science class to be my boyfriend. He thought about it for a few minutes but said no.
When I was in high school, I wanted to be on the dance team. I practiced every day but choked when I got in front of the judges, and never got the opportunity.
In my life, I have gotten so much of what I've wanted, but the things I have really tried for have always been just out of reach. You are told all of your life that hard work pays off. But that's not always true and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it's like to be the girl who doesn’t get everything she wants.
I have not always gotten the positions I wanted in organizations, the people I wanted to keep around or the recognition I thought I deserved. And many times, it has left me bitter. I don’t accept personal failures with grace and dignity. If I have put in the work, why do I not get the results I want? These are the questions that, like much of the rest of the world, keep me up at night. Things do not come easily for me like they do for the girls I am surrounded by. The flawless girls. The ones with 4.0s, the ones who are never without a boy chasing after them, the ones without money problems, the ones who succeed the first time around.
I am nothing like the flawless girls. I forget to do things that are important, I never clean my room, I pick fights with the people who love me over jealousy and I don’t think I have ever gotten an A on a test. People do not always see in me what I see in myself. I try and I try harder, but the results in many aspects of my life are usually the same regardless of my efforts.
So after this week, experiencing what I consider to be one of my biggest personal failures, I thought about it. For 48 hours, I thought about how to really feel about not getting what I wanted, after I tried endlessly. I came to the conclusion that I know what it is like to fail, truly bask in my disappointment, and think of possibly anything I could do better next time. And that’s kind of wonderful.
There are some people out there who do always get what they want. I’ve wondered over and over again what it would even be like, to just have things happen for you. What would it be like to never experience failure? To want something so bad that after you don’t get it, you don’t know what to do next? To actually feel so strongly about something, and never acquire it?
Not getting what I want has made me more human than most people I know. The leftover passion and emotions that come with failure make you a pure and understanding person. I don’t have to fake what it's like to feel like a failure because I have experienced the real thing. I would like to think that my personal failures this early on in my life are setting me up for something much better in my future, and if they don’t, I will be able to accept disappointment one day with grace and dignity.
So yes, there’s a lot of things I have worked for and have not received. I still think about what it would be like to have them most days. Instead, I have something most people don't: the realities of life.
And remember, Blair Waldorf didn't get into Yale.
