on the fear of failure

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The landslide that brings you down after seeing your reflection in the snow-covered hill is the fear of failure. Mine sometimes feels so easy to fall into that I swear I can feel the drop in my stomach. I feel it now.

This risk is a ferocious beast that appears in the eyes of well-intended adults who are too familiar with the realities of our cruel world to encourage a dreamer.

I also see my reflection in their eyes. I tell myself that this risk is human.

Where there is the fantasy of success, there is the understanding of stagnancy. I can know this without basking in it. I can actively choose to play the episode in my mind where I make a sustainable career out of this, where the words I write become etched into people’s stories—people I’ve never looked in the eye but am connected to in a somehow more intimate way.

When contemplating how to pivot, we can either stare at a blank page until, even when we look away, we still see blotches of white, or we can embrace the creative spark that once made us imagine that toys spoke.

What if the questions of complete uncertainty that we ask ourselves are really our minds wanting to help us, as opposed to overwhelm us?

The drop in my stomach has faded. I wonder if just the thought of the dread is so intense because we were never meant to dwell on it.