Am I scared? Yes.

I’m done with illusions of perfection, in myself and others. I’m done with anyone who claims to have all the answers.

Welcome new subscribers from Kathy Fish’s amazing Art of Flash Fiction newsletter! I see you! Glad to have you and stay tuned for some opportunities for writing classes and other writing stuff coming at the end of the year, including a guided course on developing a writing habit!

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At some point during the pandemic, I instituted a weekly check-in with my students, inspired by listening to Brené Brown’s podcast, Unlocking Us. At the beginning of class, we’d go around and describe how we were feeling with two words. Later, I added a question about what was bringing them joy, making them happy or helping them cope.

I always answer the question myself, as honestly as I can. Like them, I’m often feeling tired or restless or stressed. I especially like hearing what brings them joy—things like talking out loud to their fish or movie night with friends or, you know, Harry Styles.

I remember there was a moment when we came back into the classroom, probably the second or third semester after everything shut down in March of 2020. I was talking about how now there seemed to be this expectation that everything was okay now. That all the ‘special circumstances’ were over. That we could go back to ‘normal’ things like an attendance policy and that all just seemed insane to me. “We are still freaked out,” I said to my students. “We are still scared.”

“Are you scared?” one of my students asked.

The question took me aback for a moment. What was the right answer? Stiff upper lip or naked honesty? Is it okay for the people in charge to reveal their own vulnerability or should we pretend to fearlessness and invincibility?

Maybe you’ve listened to (or read) a lot of Brené Brown, too, and you’re thinking that’s such an easy question that it’s not even worth asking. Of course it’s okay to be vulnerable as a leader or teacher or parent. It’s not just okay, it’s necessary. That’s certainly what Brené Brown would say, even though most of the leaders in my own life have avoided vulnerability like the plague. Admit to your people that you’re wrong or scared or confused? Or, god forbid, that you fucked up and you’re sorry? I don’t see a lot of that in leadership at any level in my life. Certainly not in politics and definitely not in my job.

No, this picture doesn’t have much to do with this post, but it’s a dog dressed as a ghost and who doesn’t need more of that in their life? Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

It's not surprising that it’s so rare to see vulnerability in the people in charge. Our culture tells us that leaders are, I don’t know, perfect? Not human? Or if they are, they should keep that shit to themselves?

I have to confess that as a parent, I absorbed those cultural messages. I often swallowed the line that part of my job was to shelter my daughter from my own struggles and failures. Sometimes I did better. I apologized for fucking up. I admitted I was having a hard time. But mostly, I did not.

Brené Brown’s point is not to make our children feel responsible for fixing us. Hopefully, we can convey to our children that no one can truly fix anyone else. The only person who can fix me, sadly, is me.

The point is, how can our children learn how to deal with their own struggles and failures unless they have the opportunity to watch grown people do it? If you tell your child you fucked up, maybe they realize it’s okay for them to fuck up. They know they’ll survive because they saw you survive. That’s the idea, at least.

Maybe these ideas are starting to shift. It’d be nice to see more vulnerability in the world in general and especially in those with positions of power. I definitely want vulnerability in the people who take care of me. My therapist. My doctor. Any type of healers. How can I trust someone to help me heal if they haven’t been broken or hurt themselves? I guess there’s something comforting in the idea of a wise and all-knowing guru, but wisdom is hard-won. Anyone with some wisdom also has a lot of scars. Why hide them? They’re proof that you made it through.

“Was I scared?” my student asked me.

Yes, I told them. I was scared. Freaked out. Lost. Angry. Sad. Angry, again. Angry a lot. So often, I was lost. A lot of the times, I still am.

“Oh, we thought the professors were all like, ‘La-di-da. No big deal,’” the student said.

Not surprising. That was the front we’d tried to present, whether we were aware of it or not. The world is falling apart. No big deal. We’re going to suddenly have to do things—like online learning—that we’ve never done before and barely have the technology for, but no need to panic.

So we succeeded in disguising our own feelings and experiences. Maybe that inspired some students to just get on with it like we were pretending to do. I guess that can seem desirable, but you can only bury your feelings for so long. They’ll come back when you least suspect it.

For other students, our stiff upper lips no doubt made them feel like maybe there was something wrong with them because they couldn’t soldier on. No doubt, it made them feel a little more alone in a time and a world where loneliness is as epidemic as any virus.

Well, at any rate, I’m done. I’m done with illusions of perfection, in myself and others. I’m done with anyone who claims to have all the answers. Done with the inability to admit when you just fucked up. Done with the idea that apologizing is a sign of weakness. Done with brave faces and never admitting that sometimes, it’s all just hard. Sometimes, it all just sucks.

I’m done with all that because it seems to me that the only thing that’s worse than suffering is suffering alone.

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