failure and success

Once, a then-friend said to me, with more than a trace of bitterness:

"You don't know how to fail."

It was then, it is now, completely untrue.

At the time she made that comment, I had failed at a first marriage. With my Dear Husband, I had gone through bankruptcy, having failed at a business.

I've lost track of how many diet and fitness schemes I've tried that have resulted in failure.

I am truly a failure as a housekeeper. Truly. Other people seem to walk through their homes and order follows them.

I walk through the house and chaos follows.

I do know how to fail.

I wonder if I actually know how to succeed.

I have several notable successes and "wins". National Merit Scholar, National Points of Light Award, founder of theater troupes. I've made my bat mitzvah and written and produced my own plays and achieved my PhD.

But I still don't feel successful.

I keep feeling like I almost made it, I haven't quite nailed it, I faked it, I'm a fraud.