Fit to Scale

The start of a new week and I can hardly remember a time when it felt like a clean slate, when a morning didn’t carry with it the weight of monotony. I’m always tired. The same tired, day after day, after day. Sometimes with sparks of inspiration. I wake up early with ideas knocking around in my head, with possibilities tugging at my heart, but more often I sink back under cover, finding refuge in sleep. And the peace lost in the night sometimes finds me in the morning, when I know I’d feel better getting up and going about my day. Instead, I welcome sleep. Finally. And by the time I peel back the covers to expose the inertia, any promise of creativity, any semblance of rebirth, has already left me.

I’m learning. Maybe. There are days when I listen to the morning, when the right mood catches, pulls me up, and drags me along. When the mountain doesn’t feel impossible. When I reach for something to hold and expect to find it. And still, I rarely start that climb. Mostly, I stand there looking up and opt to walk away.

People talk all the time about imposter syndrome. How going about our lives can feel like masquerading. How we can’t just accept promise when it’s revealed to us, how we wrestle with belonging. How our accomplishments – big or small – are tainted with doubt. We refuse to take our places in the world, before we even know they’re ours. There’s always someone overhead with a fist full of stars, another climber destined for the summit we aim to claim for ourselves. Why are we so quick to pass on the glory? Why don’t we sport our success the way we wear our defeat? We strap our hearts to our sleeves and never listen to them beat. We belong. We belong. We belong.

Some say it’s fear of falling that keeps us stuck, but that’s not it for me. I’m not afraid to fall. I’m afraid I’ll never leave the ground. I’m terrified of missing the call, of going through life without purpose – without BECOMING who I’m meant to be, without giving what I’m meant to give. Because it’s all in the climb. Not where we start, or what we stake to get there, but the expansive fault in between. And I don’t know what to do with that – with the uncertainty on either side. I have trouble keeping my balance.

And I’ve been coaching myself. Teaching myself to acknowledge the smaller wins in life. To look at accomplishment, joy, success, with an attitude of, “Why NOT me?” If fulfillment and satisfaction is possible, why shouldn’t it be possible for me? What makes it attainable for those who find their way? If they’re not ordained, somehow special or chosen, what makes them better, more deserving, than me? Or YOU, and you, and you? And I’m encouraged. I can see myself reaching that summit, planting that flag, celebrating with all the other average people who took a chance on themselves and came out on top. There’s hope in that. There’s inspiration in that. And when I see it, when I feel that promise, I find faith in the journey. I can straddle that fault. I gain balance.

But lately, I’ve been grappling with something heavier than just imposter syndrome. I take a step further and start to lose my footing. I look to my mentors, my teachers, the people who’ve done the things I want to do, the people who have the things I long to have, and if I trust that I can do the same – my faith will only falter. When I see they have weaknesses and vulnerabilities, when I realize they make mistakes. If I accept as truth they’re sometimes wrong, even unlikable. If I’ve been misguided or deceived, disappointed or hurt. How do I recover from that? When I’ve accepted I’m not an imposter, not unworthy, no different from anyone who’s gone before me – how do I reconcile that?

And maybe I’m packing too much weight, but it’s hard for me to carry. I guess I’m still that little girl who needs to trust wholeheartedly in something. I don’t want to grow up and change perspective. I don’t want to know if my belief systems are wrong. I don’t want autonomy to mean I disagree with the people I love on things that matter, or I’ve learned from teachers I can’t respect in real life. I don’t want to doubt the heroes of my youth because they’re fallible, just like me. I want a safety net. I need that safety net.

And maybe the kind of reassurance I’m looking for doesn’t exist. Maybe there IS no safety net to make me brave, to scale my doubts. Maybe it takes profound confidence to go in the direction of your dreams. Maybe it takes a willingness to make mistakes, to reset and restore, to embrace the imbalance. Maybe it takes resilience and redirection. Maybe it’s about forgiveness – that being wrong or falling short is inevitable – for everyone. And when you start to get discouraged, or you feel like a facade, you take a minute, you gather yourself, and you just keep climbing.