Rethinking Success
This past week marked a shocking, confusing, heart wrenching challenge in my life. Two years ago, my mom passed away. Those words always hang heavy in front of me, not because the darkness or sadness, but the fact that her brightness and softness, her warmth and excitability simply isn't here to hug or to call. It's still unbelievable to me, and at times unbearable. But this past week, reflecting on my mother’s life as well as my own-- where I am in my own journey, what accomplishments I have succeeded in, along with those that I have yet to, I naturally yearned to talk with her, to have just one casual chat. Friend to friend, but more importantly mom to daughter, a relationship that was just beginning to re-blossom when she left this world. I closed my eyes and imagined the summer night breeze carrying the warmth of her soul and experience.
I know she often felt so small. I know she sometimes saw herself as flailing, falling and even failing, which was why she made a habit out of building herself up with a big, outgoing personality. This year, I've been feeling quite small and unheard. I've been feeling confused and torn. But when I thought about my mom, while taking in the Summer evening, I no longer saw what she saw as shortcomings. I realized that she had been far more successful than many others could dream of being, and that her REAL successes were in the vast amount of people whose lives she touched both by chance and by effort. I thought about all the people across the world that she has woven into her grand tapestry and brought together.
Most stories that people tell me about how she became a close friend involve hilarity, extravagance and on a deeper level, how she helped someone through a difficult time or opened them up to something brand new. I think about the impact she's made on so many other people's lives-- people that I have yet to meet. She was a force impossible to ignore and she affected, thought about and spent time with others when it was too hard to do so with herself, and because of that, may not have been the perfect mom. She also may not have ever intended to, but through her love and taking the time to really see others, to let others feel comfortable with her through her own willingness to be wild, she has given me a whole network of powerful individuals to reach out to. At the very least, she has connected me with a whole network of mothers and sisters and strong women with hearts as generous as hers that maybe she secretly knew could give the love she wished she could give long after she’d be gone. Those connections that fill my life would not exist without her.
It may not have seemed relevant before, but lately I've been rekindling old relationships and taking the time to catch up with new and old friends. I've been speaking and working from my heart, just like her, and I realized that so far on my journey, I have touched a good amount of lives as well. The success lies in being a good person, not in jobs or possessions or even nailing a yoga pose. Thank you Mom for showing me what success truly is.
