(Article No. I) Flirting with Failure

I flirted with failure and it became my first ever talking stage. It wasn’t my intention, but it happened. What started out as casual flirting, just for the hell of it, turned into something more. Entertaining failure created a toxic relationship that altered my entire freshman year.

Before my freshman year of college, I hadn’t experienced many things, but I ended up experiencing a weird rooming situation, parties, relationships and even failure. Part of it could be because of where I was from. It could also have come from how sheltered I was. 

But I found it interesting how I hadn’t truly experienced failure before. And of course, I am a human who has made mistakes and embarrassed myself, but I’ve never seen those obstacles as a failure, as a loss, or as a regret.

I hadn’t even had a grade below a C. I’ve always been taught and pushed to not just do my best, but to be the best. Nothing less was accepted. 

And in college, this mindset led me to create a misstep that I thought would figure itself out. That’s how I began

flirting with failure. If you had asked me my thoughts and opinions on this before, I would have told you that this is the ideal mindset. This is the way you should want to live your life. Now as I look back, I think to myself that I still haven’t experienced all that life still has in store for me. And this semi-flawed mindset can be holding me back from my potential.

I’ve experienced hardships that I have no control over and I’m still in that situation. I’m forced to sit back and watch everything unfold in front of me and pick up the pieces as I go. The worst part? I can’t even fit it or put it back together. As someone who hates to experience change, I’m told that I must make something new out of what is in front of me. And I have no creative direction. But that misunderstanding led me to make a mistake that looked smaller than what it truly was. I sat back and watched as my grades slipped away. I could have done something, but I thought it would figure itself out.

Talking stages and situationships don’t ever figure themselves out. You have to put in the effort for it to work. So how could I have possibly thought that my relationship with my grades would just work itself out without my contribution? While talking stages don’t necessarily have a step-by-step  process, you can argue that the majority of them have five basic steps: the initial connection/interaction, getting to know each other, exploring compatibility, spending time together and discussing expectations.

Step One, The Initial Connection/Interaction: I had already known myself and my work patterns. I knew that I led with determination and persistence. But I never knew the part of myself that actually failed. Failure was not a part of me, and I was slowly being introduced. It started off with missing one or two assignments and reassuring myself that I’d make them up later. But then I kept missing assignments, and they started piling up one after the other. To make matters worse, I hadn’t reached out to any of my professors. I hated seeing the 30+ missing assignments due and ultimately just stopped opening my Canvas. I still went to all my classes and completed in-class assignments but didn’t do anything else. It felt like the act of going to class was enough when it truly wasn’t. But even when everything started piling up, I never had the sense of worry or anxiety that the work wasn’t getting done. I was just stuck in the mindset of “I’ll do it later.”

Step Two, Getting to Know Each Other: Over winter break, I received the email. “You are placed on academic probation.” And although my heart dropped, that email never really sunk in. I couldn’t let it; I was working, and I couldn’t just have a random outburst of emotions. I think this is where I began to experience numbness. So many things would happen and take place in my life, and I couldn’t show any emotion. I couldn’t cry; I couldn’t get upset. I’d talk about it and end it off with a masked laugh and smile. I was beginning to get to know the feeling of not caring. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to care but more that I couldn’t care because I was running out of time. I was in such a constant state of belief that I was so behind my peers and I was running out of time. I was falling behind. I was falling behind so much that I couldn’t care for anything else. In such a time of asking so many questions and not asking the important ones, I began to learn a little about myself without realizing it just yet.

Step Three, Exploring Compatibility: I didn’t feel the consequences of failing until it was much too late. When I tried to fix it, things only got worse. Instead of fixing any of my problems, I tried to ignore them and focus on my work, but the problems continued to wreak havoc from behind the scenes. I had taken on too much at this point and could no longer hold on. Even though I turned in some assignments at the end and even went to two of my finals, it was basically as if I had just given up and hoped for the best. I specifically remember thinking about it at the time from the perspective of “it’s too late now. All I can do from this point is try my best now and turn my life around next year.” And that’s basically what I told everyone! When I look back now, I wonder why I thought that if I just gave up now that things would suddenly change in the next year? But that's how I left the semester and entered the summer.

Step Four, Spending Time Together: I was academically dismissed from the University of New Haven. Now if you don't know what that is, being academically dismissed means that your GPA did not meet the requirements to continue to attend the university. Once again, I was at work when I received the email, and this time the email told me I was dismissed. And what did I do? I acted like my world didn’t just shatter. And for the most part, my world really didn’t shatter, because no longer going to college didn’t mean that there weren’t other things that I couldn’t do. I was in such utter disbelief. I knew things were bad, but never did I think they were this bad. I felt like I was left out of so many conversations that I desperately needed to be a part of. I was working with my advisor to do better, meeting with her biweekly  and she didn’t express that I was in danger of being academically dismissed. I almost felt lied to. Even during the summer that this was happening, I hadn’t told anyone what was going on. I only told my best friend at the time. My parents didn’t know, my family didn’t know, my friends didn't know and not even my sister knew. But I knew that if I wanted things to change, I had to share my struggles with the people around me. I had to share, not because I wanted to, but because I knew I could no longer do this by myself. 

So, I went to my mentors. The great thing about my mentors was that they also happened to be my family. Meaning they know who I am, they know who my parents are, and they know how my parents would react. They were able to give me the best advice on how to go about the process and made sure to constantly check in on me to make sure that things were going along smoothly. They were even there when I had sat down and told my mother everything. I strongly believe that sharing with others what I was going through is what really made me work hard to be readmitted. And a week or so after I sent in my appeal letter, I was readmitted to the University of New Haven.

Step Five, Discussing Expectations: Unfortunately, failure hasn’t left me yet. Even now back at school I pass by failure sometimes and it feels like he’s everywhere I go. I can’t escape him. Although we weren’t really in a true relationship together, it feels as if we’d broken up without actually doing so. And truly, I feel scared because what if I’m still unknowingly flirting with failure? At what point can I escape? At this moment, I’m definitely slipping, but the difference between now and then is that I’ve shared my experience with failure with others. My friends know, my family knows, my teachers and advisors know. If anything, I should talk to a therapist and let them know, too. But it’s for the better. What I didn’t know or see before was that I was struggling in silence. I didn’t share the conversations I had with failure. Maybe because I was embarrassed, but I think it’s because I really thought I had it under control, and what a sad mistake that was. Ultimately, yes, failure might be after me, but I have support now, and I’m asking for help now. I know now that the more I reach out and ask for help, the more failure has the chance to lose me and never see me again. I share all this with you because nobody really talks about it. At least, not the people I know. Yes, everyone makes jokes about failing, but I’ve felt like this has been an original experience, even though I know it’s not. And if you’re currently in a similar situation as I was, my advice is to cut failure off. Do what you have to do in order to remove failure from your life. Most importantly, remember that it’s most definitely not the end.

In all honesty, when it comes to flirting with people, I have no experience in that. And I find nothing wrong with it at all, but if I’m such a great flirt when it comes to failing, then I should definitely build confidence to do more for myself and especially to do better for myself. I’d like to recount this time as my first-ever situationship and it was toxic. Now I definitely won't let a bad experience put me down or stop me from putting myself out there. Instead, I take it as a lesson I’m still learning. Failure and I don’t talk anymore; failure still haunts me and maybe it’s because I haven’t blocked him. But I’m done with failure; I’ve moved on, I’m doing better and

I’m building a healthier relationship with myself.