[ad_1]
Dare to fail and you may discover what you really desire.
If you and I lived in ancient Rome, this month we’d most likely be making promises to Janus, the god of beginnings and endings, of war and peace. The month of January is named after Janus — that two-faced hottie — the god of time, doorways, and transitions. To be honest, Janus sounds like my worst nightmare and also sexy as hell. We probably would have dated if mere mortals could have swiped right on the gods of ancient Rome.
This year I am rethinking resolutions. I am unlearning what I once thought I had to resolve. What if everything we thought we needed to change about ourselves was only an invitation to experience more acceptance and joy? This is the question I am asking myself this January as I fantasize about having a torrid, month-long, life-altering affair with Janus.
In 2021, the only resolution I made was to be rejected 100 times. Primarily in my writing life, but I also felt called to focus on this resolution across the board. The start of the pandemic in 2020 made me realize I had lost contact with something in myself over the last 10 years that I desperately wanted back. 2020 made me realize I no longer wanted to improve. I didn’t want to be more efficient or smarter or hotter or better in any way. I wanted to be worse. I wanted to be reminded of what it feels like to accept that my circumstances and myself may never get any better than this and that trying and failing and trying again in the direction of what I most desire and value is more than enough.
Since I was 8 years old, every year I resolved to lose weight or change my body in some way until I was in my late 20s. Then it was about “getting in shape.” To look and move and try to be more feminine even though it’s never come naturally to me. Every year I failed and even the years where I did lose weight, where I met some arbitrary number I had decided would be something to be proud of that year, I still felt like I’d failed. No matter how much I lost, no matter how many dresses I bought or great haircuts I got, it never felt like enough. Why? Because what I wanted, what I needed, wasn’t to actually lose weight or change myself at all.
I set myself up for failure by not understanding what was beneath the resolution. I needed to let go of the weight of cisnormativity. I needed to allow myself to no longer see my body in all the gendered ways I had been taught and that were reflected back to me since I was a kid.
The desire to lose weight wasn’t about wanting to be skinnier or prettier or more legible as a woman. The desire to lose weight was the desire to slowly disappear because I didn’t feel safe to be seen as I really am, by myself or anyone else. I never achieved my New Year’s resolution until I accepted that I would always fail at resolving it. I would fail because the resolution was the wrong one.
I am no longer interested in goals, in resolutions, not really. I am interested in circling, in returning to myself in full acceptance again and again. I am interested in this practice because it is about movement, about flow, about allowing our constantly changing desires and needs to lead us to the people, places, and projects we most need in order to heal and share our wisdom and joy with each other. I see resolving to fail as engaging in this process, which is ultimately a process of loving ourselves and life itself. The point of my Year of 100 Rejections was about staying engaged, about practicing, about offering myself to the world without being attached to a particular outcome. Inevitably, there are some acceptances, some wins along the way just by showing up to practice again and again. That part is lovely, but the part of the process I find most invigorating is supporting myself as I face my fears.
This month I watched the latest season of Emily in Paris on Netflix because a part of me is deeply basic and wants to know what it’s like to be a conventionally beautiful young American ciswoman being completely degraded and snubbed by her French colleagues all while wearing *fashion* and taking on many incredibly hot French lovers.
Sylvie, the most French and snobbiest of the crew pictured in this missive to you, is my favorite. She’s my favorite because Sylvie clearly DOES NOT set New Year’s resolutions. Sylvie does not give a flying fuck what or how anyone else thinks she should be or how she should improve. At first, I thought this made Sylvie cold and thoughtless, but this season I came to see that she’s only responding appropriately to a patriarchal culture that has failed her in business and in love.
And what does Sylvie do about it? She doesn’t give up on herself or make herself smaller. No. She chooses to fail the cultural expectations that have been put on her by taking on a lover half her age who also happens to be an emotionally sensitive and incredibly sexy photographer with an accent I can’t quite place because he speaks like ten languages or something.
When Sylvie’s ex calls her after seeing her in the streets of Paris looking cozy with her new lover while he’s with his wife and accuses her of looking “silly” being with a younger man, does Sylvie care? No. Instead, she slowly sets the cat food down and tells her ex that she could give a flying fuck how silly she looks to him. His judgment (and jealousy, I mean c’mon!) only gives her the courage to show up to the brunch her lover invited her to with all his friends that she originally said she wouldn’t go to because she wanted to keep things casual. When she arrives at the brunch in a *gorgeous* tight dress, she makes out with him in front of everyone because Sylvie knows it doesn’t matter what age she is or how she looks. The patriarchal order will always try to convince her that she will never be enough.
In bed this morning, Janus and I were talking about Sylvie over coffee and I asked him what he thought about her situation while I stared lovingly at both of his faces.
He said, “Walk through that doorway to full self-acceptance and unabashed sensuality, honey!”
And then, I kissed him. Yes, both of his faces.
Yours,
Failure
[ad_2]
Source link
