Guest Post: The ‘F’ Word

Everyone deals with it, but no one talks about it. Let me correct that. Hardly anyone talks about it. 

The F word. 

You may not know what word I am talking about. The big F word. 

No not that one …

And not that one either. Although fear is a big one. We all have fear and don’t want to talk about it. We all deal with it - as kids, adolescence, and adults. 

But, no. The F word I am talking about today is failure. 

I don’t want this to be a list of my failures in life. No one wants to hear about that, even if they think a part of them will feel better or above me because they haven’t experienced failure on the level that I have. Whether it’s relatable or not, I don’t want to be a Debbie downer like that. My story is filled with broken pieces from a broken heart, ugly truths I faced about myself, and putting the puzzle together. My story is filled with becoming. It’s also filled with a major comeback, and not in the sense I saw it happening. It brought peace to my soul and grace that saved my life. That sounds dramatic, but I mean it. 

My story - my journey - is one that I hope will buoy you up, and bring you peace so that when you fail at something you thought you had in the bag but didn’t, you’ll know it isn’t the end and it’ll all be alright.  

On Dec. 5, 2018, my neighbor knocked on my door with her 2-year-old who was having a seizure. I have had no medical training at this point in my life, so even though she was there and asking for help, my initial reaction was that I didn’t know what to do. But then I suddenly clicked into a whole other version of myself that I didn’t even know existed. I knew what to do and was able to help. We got 911 on the way and as they entered my front room and helped my neighbor and her little girl, I knew it had all been meant for me. 

Five months later, I was sitting in my first day of EMT training, feeling all the feels. I got a message from a friend as I sat waiting for the class to start. She was cheering me on, telling me, “You’ve got this, you are one of the smartest people I know. You will do amazing at this.” I had so many doubts about what I was doing there. How did I get to this point in my life, sitting in this chair about to learn about saving people. Me? I don’t handle blood and all that stuff well. I don’t. 

And yet, there I was. The class lasted 12 weeks. They cram a lot of information in those 12 weeks. A LOT. I learned more about the human body, how it works, the functions of the heart, and blood, and oxygen and technical terms I’d never heard before as a stay-at-home mom of four young kids. While the instructors were speaking English, I felt like I was learning a new language. As I said before, I don’t have any prior medical training of any kind. Needless to say, I was very overwhelmed for four months soaking up all the knowledge I could and passing tests the best I could. 

Did I pass the class? You bet I did. We had a list of skills we had to act out on dummies and classmates. One example is CPR. When it came time for the class to be done, I was sad. I had made friends there. When you perform these skills, you get pretty personal with strangers, and I was sad to see us go separate ways. I was also sad because this class had been a part of my summer break I was really enjoying. 

Turns out I was in the top four in the class of 16 people. I felt proud, and I walked out of class on the last day feeling good - head held high. My instructors were proud of me and how far I had come. I was excited to know I passed and would be recommended to take the NREMT which is the National Registry for EMT. Basically I would not be just a trained EMT, I would be certified and could become the real deal. 

Our instructor told us straight up the test was hard. “Most people don’t pass it the first time,” she told us. “We have people that just take it over and over and can’t seem to pass it. A few people come through here and pass it with flying colors the first time.”

I knew deep down I would not be passing it with flying colors. I had struggled hard to pass the tests in class while I was surrounded by pre-med students. They probably didn’t even study and still scored 100%. I worked so hard. I put my heart into it. I studied every chance I could between trying to make memories for my kids that summer. I felt like I could do it. I knew the skills, and I knew them well. What to do in the moment was not a question for me, but the actual test, well, one of my ugly truths in my life is I’ve never been great at taking tests. I studied every chance I could and prayed to God for what felt like every second of every day until the moment I was staring at the big scary, hairy test. 

I took it. I did. I took the NREMT. I failed. 

I had friends from the class who passed, and others who also failed. It was comforting to know it wasn’t just me, but I wanted it so bad. I really thought if I just studied hard, I would get it. All my friends and family were rallying behind me, telling me, “You’ve got this, just don’t give up.” 

It’s great to have so many people who believe in you. They want to hear your good news just as much as you want to share it. So, I studied more. I studied and I studied. A month after my first attempt, I took the test again. 

I failed. Again. 

I can probably count on one hand how many times in my life I have cried that hard. I know it sounds crazy, but I was broken. I had done everything in my power I felt I could to get it. I did my part. I studied, I tried every app, every study guide, and it just didn’t seem to help me pass this test. I was mad, I was angry. At God. At the whole system. At myself for being so dumb. I would never measure up. 

I wanted it so badly. My deepest desire from the very beginning was to help people. I just wanted to help. I felt like when I started on this journey that this was it - this was the way I was going to be able to. This was the capacity I could finally fulfill that dream. 

When we are broken like that, nothing anyone says can snap us out of it. I was broken in that sense. People from all walks of life had been my cheerleaders through the process telling me I was cut out to be an EMT. They told me I would be able to pass. So after failing the test twice, no matter what they said to me, I just felt like they were wrong. Nothing they said would change that I saw myself as a big, fat failure. 

During this time, I had an awkward moment in the grocery store with a neighbor. I felt “off” because of where I was in life, and I knew she would wonder about it. So when I was in a slightly better place, on a different day, I went to her and told her the situation, hoping more than anything she would know that my behavior that in the store had nothing to do with her. She was understanding, and she told me, “You will get there, you will pass it. Everything you do, you always do well.”

I have remembered that all these months later. When she said that to me, I puzzled over it for days. Do people really see me like that? Knowing I have failed at things? Big things. Business ventures, the National EMT test. 

We can put our heart into things, and try our best, and things still fail. Things still don’t always work out. Marriages, relationships, all things can fall apart. Failure comes. We think if we get over our fear, and go for it, things will work out. All the good quotes about not giving up tell us we will overcome our fear and succeed, but instead, sometimes we fail. Success isn’t guaranteed. I don’t succeed in everything I do.

I wish I could stand here and say I am now a certified EMT. That I took the test again and passed. That I could give you hope that my comeback was that I passed and that now I save lives every day like I dreamed.

Instead, I have two failed attempts, no passing test. Yet. 

Not too long ago, I spent time cleaning out a storage unit full of wedding decorations from a business I started seven years ago that I decided to dissolve, or downsize, or … something. I haven’t actually fully decided what I am doing with that yet. I have been clearing things out and selling items on Facebook marketplace, so I don’t have to pay $83 a month to store the stuff there anymore. It was a decision I felt really good and confident about, except in some moments while looking at all the wedding decorations, I felt this could also be chalked up to another one of Janalee’s failures. Cool.

During a walk with my husband, I told him how I felt guilty, sad, disappointed, and embarrassed. That chapter of my life, the wedding business I had for seven years, was probably coming to a close. The EMT life I thought would be the next chapter hasn’t happened yet. I felt like a big, fat failure. 

I often think of those phrases that tell us to go for it, put ourselves out of your comfort zone, and shoot for the stars. I did all that and I’m still stuck in the same place. Those phrases didn’t bring me any closer to the goal I wanted to achieve. 

So, the question remains: What is my comeback, my inspiration to all this, my message to you?

That this life isn’t about achievements and successes. When we leave this earth, what will we take with us? Our experiences. Our knowledge. Our lessons we learned. And what do we leave? How do we measure one person’s success in a lifetime? When our journey here ends, what will matter most, that we tried and failed? Or that we tried and went for it?  

Will I ever be an EMT? I don’t know. I don’t know what comes next, and that is the beauty of life. We don’t have to know what comes next. We don’t need to have everything figured out right this second. We don’t need to know our entire story. We are living, changing, growing, and riding through our entire unique and beautiful journey of life.

That’s exactly what it is - a journey - and it wouldn’t be a journey if we knew everything that is coming next. It wouldn’t be a journey if we knew how it all turns out in the end. Remember that sometimes it not working out is it working out.

Don’t forget how far you’ve already come. Don’t forget what you have learned. Don’t underestimate yourself, and don’t let fear stop you from trying something new. Don’t be afraid to prove yourself wrong, and above all else, don’t be afraid to rise when you fall. Be patient with yourself. Smile at not knowing, because your story, like mine, is still being written. And the story itself is never a failure.