THE YEAR I FAILED.

Today I am looking at everyone who has ‘made it’ with a new reverence. It is too easy to fail or fall, harder to win and even harder to rise.

I turned twenty two on a dusty Sunday. I drank copious amounts of red wine and never pictured myself sitting in front of my laptop a year later using a word like ‘copious’. I went to church earlier that Sunday and had an intense conversation with God about how I am not sure about this whole life thing. I thought a Bachelor’s degree was a degree at life, a pass and money in several bank accounts.

Boy was I wrong. Terribly wrong.

The days that followed slowly accumulated and turned into weeks and then months. I wasn’t keeping track of the changes but I was changing. I was drinking less, reading more. I lost my contact lenses and forgot to replace them, I lost my stud and then I cut my hair. I don’t know exactly when I stopped being the girl with the hazel contacts, tapered cut and piercings- do you remember that girl? I was that girl. I loved that girl.

When you ask for something, be prepared to receive it.

In the days that passed I grew into someone with different tastes. Different parts of my personality started to accent themselves. My world expanded and I no longer felt inhibited by myself or others. That’s when the disparity happened. People found it hard to deal with who I was becoming and even I couldn’t keep track. Now I can confidently say it is possible – it is okay to be one person who grows into another. I am who I am, regardless of what colour my eyes are or whether I am on first name basis with my barber or not. The reconciliation is happening now between the person I was and the person I want to become.

I asked God for calling, for purpose and he is surprising me. Passion sometimes consumes me when I think about art, literature and history. I can ramble for hours about these three lovers of mine. My brain has become a sponge, I am more eager to learn now than I ever was as a student. I have the kind of thirst that only knowledge and experience can quench. So to quench this thirst I set out on a journey and naturally I thought I would win or at least come out with a good story.

I haven’t won, not in the way I thought I would.

My life is currently like a season of Two Broke Girls… except it’s just One Broke Kandi with lots of dreams and no friends with European accents. Sometimes I hear the sound of victory turn itself to currency and sometimes I have minus signs turning into question marks, asking me why I bother. The temptation to just quit and enter the formation is strong. It would be much easier to just get a real job, hang the hat on my dreams and buy high waist jeans. The amounts of money I have spent chasing my dreams is embarrassing. The moments I have spent crossing my fingers and praying for a miracle are countless. I am still waiting for Barclays to ‘accidentally’ credit my account with dollars but until then I am working.

I have failed this year in almost everything. Nothing has blown up into an overnight success. I have not created the next Facebook. And what is sad is I am a twenty three year old woman now, nobody will kiss my booboos and tell me it is okay. Nobody will come and chase the bogeyman that stops me from dreaming. I have to get up, dust myself off and dare to dream again and again even if it all turns into a nightmare.

Would I do it all over again? Heck yeah.

Unfortunately I am not wise enough to say I would make wiser decisions if I was given a time machine. I would make all my mistakes again. Every one of my failures has transformed into lessons and now I have a wealth of seemingly irrelevant information. Right now I can write a book on how to fail.

It has been about a year. I have grown my hair back, shed off the weight of loss and insecurity, I have lost money, friends and a sister, I have traded, battered and created. Somehow I am still alive and by grace I got another year.

Time to make it all count.