Challenge Accepted

Dear Mom,

Have you ever felt like there was something you couldn’t do? Have you ever stopped yourself out of a fear of failure or assumption that it wasn’t achievable? Have you ever done it anyway and surprised yourself? Accomplished the seemingly impossible?

Growing up, I missed out on countless opportunities because I felt I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t possibly accomplish such a task. Athletics. Academics. Relationships and friendships. I stopped myself from taking chances too many times. 

Of course, when I drank, I was often unstoppable. Alcohol was that liquid courage to me. My confidence. My drive. My determination. Without it? I was full of doubt.

It was terrible during my adolescence. Much worse during college. And touch and go for a few years later when I first came to Los Angeles.

But it turns out, sprinkled in throughout the years, I had been working toward growth. I can now look back and see where my building blocks of confidence were placed. Little by little, I’ve been providing a stable foundation for my self-worth. I simply didn’t notice it in the moment.

Back in 2011, Jeremy handed me a flier. It was for a running group. Aids Project Los Angeles and the Team to End Aids was starting to train the following month for the Los Angeles Marathon. I had never run a marathon before. Had never even run half. The most I had run was a 10K back in Grad School and it was an excruciating experience. But I needed this. I needed to say yes. In fact, in my memory, Jeremy’s words were, “Here, this is what you’ve been looking for.” I had been searching for a healthy community in our new city. And this seemed like a great choice.

Now, it wasn’t unlike me to sign on to something bigger than myself. Something somewhat unobtainable. It was sort of delusional to think I could do it. Based on no evidence of prior success. And I won’t pretend that this was a healthy choice. It was undoubtedly a taste of my self-sabotage, giving myself a task to accomplish that I could fail at with a solid excuse of it being out of reach. 

Turns out, I didn’t fail. It was hard. I struggled many times along the way, but I learned to run long distance. I learned to push myself well beyond what I thought I could do. I completed the marathon. It might have taken me over six hours. I might have been forced to walk a lot. But I did it. I crossed the finish line. I set a new marker for my personal potential.

Around three years later. Soon after you died actually. I quit my job as a membership assistant at a private club and signed up to become a certified Pilates Instructor. It was a huge change in my life. Not only would I be submerging myself professionally into a community where felt I didn't belong, but I’d also be pushing myself physically further than I’d ever been pushed. Even further than that marathon. In order to complete my nine-month long certification process I needed to ride my bike eight miles each way to the studio. Not only that, but I had to go back to working at a restaurant to attempt to pay for the certification and the restaurant was located even further away from home. So, all together, I’d need to ride my bike twenty miles a day, a large portion uphill, to workout at the studio and then stand for hours at my restaurant shift. It was a hard decision to make at first due to the fact that I have fibromyalgia and I had never pushed my body so hard for such a prolonged time before. I questioned whether or not I could physically handle it. Could my body achieve such a strenuous goal?

Ultimately, I decided at the time to try. It would be an experiment in a way. Could I push my body this far physically? Would I survive? I survived the marathon. I survived 26 miles. Could I also survive 20 miles a day? 

The answer? Yes. And then some. 

Looking back at that time, I get tired just thinking about it. But back then I simply had no choice. We didn’t have a car. There were no Ubers yet. The public transportation in Los Angeles wasn’t helpful for that particular commute. So, I did it. I survived. To my surprise, I also thrived. My energy level increased. My productivity increased. My overall quality of life increased. This was the best decision of my life.

Now, it’s been twelve years since that marathon. Almost ten since I began my journey in fitness. So much has happened. So many moments when I pushed myself further than I thought possible. Physically and mentally. 

And now, as I’m older and wiser and typically more exhausted, I am starting to see the next phase of my potential as a human. 

My potential to grow. My potential to improve. My potential to perform. And the performance now isn’t so objective. It isn’t crossing a finish line. It’s more abstract. It’s more challenging to measure. But I’m starting to recognize the signs. The markers for my potential as a mom as a wife as a friend and as a writer. 

Today I’m going to focus on my potential as a writer. As a creative. This somewhat unmeasurable artform that is so subjective that it requires quite a thick skin. Maybe this is why my debt from Film School is worth it. They certainly taught us how to deal with criticism and rejection. Maybe it’s paying off now as I open yet another form rejection for my novel. 

In the beginning of my new journey as a writer, after taking years off from sharing my writing with any humans, I went through a stage where I second guessed every word. Each sentence was full of doubt and apprehension. The imposter syndrome kicked in hard causing me to shy away from sharing.

But I’ve been working on myself a lot the last few months and it’s feeling like there is a noticeable difference. 

Sure, I’ve had my moments where I slip into my usual unfortunate behaviors. When I question my decisions, not only with writing. I overthink my conversations. I wonder if I should have the chocolate or not, the answer is almost always just have the fucking chocolate. But for the most part, I’ve been able to get through the majority of these moments with a relative ease. 

This newfound ability to move past my flaws and encourage my confidence to blossom has worked well for my parenting, my physical endurance and strength, and my relationships. Now I wonder how I can use this to inspire my potential as a writer. As I think about it, I’m starting to see that it’s all connected. My potential is transferrable. 

For the last couple of months, I have been sending out query letters for my book. I’m trying to get a literary agent so I can one day get published. The current novel I’m querying is a young adult book. Over the weekend, after two agents gave me advice that matched the same advice as two before, it was confirmed, I must rewrite half of my manuscript. I opened my final draft of my novel and scrolled the pages as I contemplated how I was going to edit one of my main characters from her adult self into her teenaged self. How was I going to rewrite close to 40,000 words. It’s a daunting task. Scary and overwhelming. But then I remembered my potential. I remembered that I’ve done more challenging things in life. Beyond that marathon or that career change. I’ve moved across the country while pregnant. I’ve recovered from a challenging childbirth that led to an infection. I’ve moved across the country with a toddler and a newborn. I’ve biked 8 miles to work at four in the morning while still breastfeeding. I’ve pumped at work. 

On top of all that? I’ve gotten through losing you. I’ve become stronger. I’ve grown in so many ways. 

In a sense, I can do anything. 

I think in the past I’ve looked at these moments with an attitude like, “Sure, why not, just add it to the pile of other things I need to accomplish, and I’ll figure it out.” I could eke out a completed assignment just out of the need to check it off my list and say I did it. But it wasn’t always high quality. That was my self-sabotage. Doing too much so I could then blame my bloated workload for my subpar finished product. 

I’ve always thought it best to overload my to do list because historically I do best when I don't have time to be lazy. When I have to juggle a million pieces during my day. It’s always been the moments when I have nothing to do that lead to me getting nothing done. 

Now I see it from a new perspective. It’s not that I do best when I have too much on my plate because I don’t have time to slow down. In reality, it’s that I do best when my success leads to more potential. My productivity leads to seeking out more opportunity. 

Understanding that difference allows me to be capable of looking at my workload through a different lens. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I feel excited. I am counting down the minutes of my day until I can get back to my novel. To pick it apart and start to see it as progress. At first, I wasn’t happy about killing my darlings. To write new scenes means deleting the old. But what if the new scenes are stronger? What if this edit helps provide me with the necessary push to improve?

Moments like this one have felt intimidating in the past because the goalpost keeps moving. Further and further away. There was certainly a point in my life when I would have seen that image as life bringing me down. That no matter what I did, I’d be stuck in quicksand. Now I see it as growth. My goal gets bigger and weighs more and is further away. And all that space between me and the goalpost is my potential. Each time I succeed, and I prove to myself that I can do it, my confidence grows. I’m more secure in myself because I know I can accomplish anything. It was a foreign concept for so many years but now it’s beginning to feel like it’s actually a part of me. My body contains confidence. It runs through my blood. It's within my bones.

Instead of being intimidated by a process that sounds out of my league, I’m beginning to look forward to pushing myself. To seeing how I surprise myself.

And this doesn’t feel so far off from that marathon. That day was challenging. I ran with a group of people I’d been training with for months. We stuck together until the dreaded mile 18 when all runners hit ‘the wall’. After a series of events, I was left walking by myself for miles. But I wasn’t entirely alone out on that course. Coaches found me to give me salt tabs when my fingers were swollen. Crowds of spectators cheered me on. There was even a message from my family broadcast on a massive billboard over Sunset Blvd. Maybe the writing has felt more daunting because I am alone. I am by myself in my room typing away. But I’m far from feeling lonely here. When I write, I listen to music. The lyrics and tunes in my ear help guide me along the page. I have a new writing community online that are super encouraging. I have friends who I call when I’m stuck or excited about a new scene. And I have you. When I’m contemplating something big or unsure of a choice, I write to you.

There is also the fact that I’m not alone and not lonely because I have me. I have my confidence. I am my own spectator cheering me on. And I do know I can do this. I can take on this massive task and I can follow through. I’m not simply getting by doing the bare minimum like I used to. I’m not sabotaging myself out of a deep fear of imposter syndrome. I’m actually writing well. Really well. And it feels good. It feels really good to live up to my potential. To recognize it and to welcome it. 

At the end of the day, I see the truth, that this is only the beginning. I am unstoppable. I accept the challenge.

I love you, Mom.

Love, 

Rachel