It feels like a lifetime ago that I sat on bar stools, sucking in the smoke of menthol cigarettes. I don’t even relate to that broken girl, clothed in the shame of her childhood and the decisions born from her brokenness. Far too long I lived a life that was not my own; a life that I could not embrace. I recently met a man who told me that I didn’t look like I used to be an alcoholic. I gently laughed at the man, several years my elder. What does one look like who used to be an alcoholic? He proceeded to tell me of a moment in his early twenties. He had begun using cocaine recreationally with some buddies at work. One afternoon while in the bathroom at the automotive shop where he was employed, he was preparing to take a bump to get himself through the day. When he leaned forward to the counter, he caught himself in the mirror. He looked himself in the eye and asked, “Is this who I am meant to be?” He lingered in that mirror for a few moments, and then he flushed everything he had down the toilet and never touched cocaine again. How many times did I catch my eyes in the mirror and ask myself that same question? How many times did I avoid eye contact with myself altogether? So many years I walked in shame, until one day, I held my own gaze long enough to wake up.
It has been years since I made the decision to change my life. I am not that girl anymore. From the outside, I might look like I have it all together. I run a successful business (or two, or three, maybe four), have a good marriage, my kids love me (most of the time, one is a teenager now), and I serve in my community where I can. Life is good. And truly, it is. So why do I feel like I am coming up short in every aspect of my life? This shame that I have spent the last five years trying to shake is attempting to take up residency in my life again.
This shame is different. It isn’t the kind of shame that you hide behind, keeping secrets and telling yourself lies. This isn’t the shame of failure or regret. This is the shame of success; success that breeds inadequacy.
Business is good, so good that I am in demand, people are often vying for my time. Success. People are pleased with my services, referrals are plentiful, people have good things to say about me. Success. But in that success comes the stress of too much – too much demand for my time, too many people to keep happy, too many hours spent at the office. My never-ending to do list keeps me awake long after the stars have filled the sky. In my success, I have become inadequate.
My children are growing. They play musical instruments, offering their praise to the God that pulled their mother from the wreckage. They earn trophies and have compassion for people and pets, my son is always finding some stray animal that needs rescuing. My daughter is kind and constantly reminds me of the kind of person I want to be – forgiving and humble. Success. But too much time at work has led to meals on the run, junk-food lunches, and my children have suffered the consequences of my busy life on their waistlines. “You’re never here,” gently stabs my heart. I have worked hard to create a life for them better than what I had, but failed to find the time to enjoy a better life with them.
“…the [invention of] the clock made us into time-keepers, and then time-savers, and now time-servers.”
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
Where I used to be a slave to the bottle, I have become a slave to the clock. Shame has found a way to infiltrate my daily life again, and I can’t allow her to stay. While this world screams “MORE!”, and as the spirit of the age says to rise up, I have to re-define success for my life. At the end of this life, I will not regret the days left work early, but the days I stayed too long. I will not wish I had spent more money on my children, but more time listening to them laugh. I refuse to allow shame to tell me I have failed, but rather I will remember the words of a great man in history: “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.” ~Thomas A. Edison. Running from your past? Doesn’t work. Drinking to mask the pain, to feel free from shame? Doesn’t work. Looking for attention for validation? Doesn’t work. Seeking deep internal satisfaction from relationships? Doesn’t work. Those things are kind of obvious, but the recent discovery that building successful businesses and working hard don’t always mean success is kind of revelatory for me. Success looks different for me as my life evolves, and it looks different for me than it does for my neighbor. Today, I will remind shame that she is not welcome in my heart, she has no place in my mind, and she no longer can steal my joy. I’ve caught my eye in the mirror, and I see right where I am.
Uncommonly Common Mom 