Big Things Everyday!

I am always thinking about how to express myself. Emotions, I find, are fickle things, and more importantly they are hard to tease out. Often times, when people describe their emotions, there is an underlying anger there, an emotion that’s triggered, childhood trauma (likely). It’s all in how you express yourself.

I have found that my expression is inextricably tied to other people’s reactions. My joy, while unmistakably my own, is often supplanted by other people’s joy. This also applies to other emotions: when I am an angry, I do not want people to feel my anger, but I do want them to understand my source. Neither is it the case that when I am sad, I seek to be surrounded by the voices of mourners. But it is a general feeling, universally applicable, that when you deliver news to the people closest to you, you expect a reaction. A wide reaction. Often times, I tease out the beginnings of a vital moment, and I watch how eyes move askance, the rhythm of the clap, the crinkle on a face. It is both understandable and deeply unreasonable. As I’ve grown older, I obviously understand that you cannot bird-watch people into having the reaction you would want them to have, but I have also found that people who know what to celebrate are deeply important. Isn’t the shape of a reaction the greatest hallmark of a memory?

Reaction, I think, is so important to me because I am someone who struggles to deliver news about myself. It’s even harder to deliver good news when you are a writer, because so much of writing is process-based; that is to say, telling people about incompletion. I can tell someone, “I spoke to an agent today!” and they believe the good news is “I hope you get the agent!” but in reality the good news is I spoke to the agent. What I am thinking about is the fact that I had a lovely conversation, that someone saw me; the outcome, for me, is frankly immaterial.

As a teenager (and even to some extent as an adult today), I longed to achieve big things so I could announce them as the big things they were. “I won an award” had a lovely ring to it - it was full of unquestionable congratulations, pats on the back, a “how much money are they paying you?” Being shortlisted for an award, on the other hand, feels quite different - the sentiments are closer to “I hope you win!” or even “better luck next time,” but it’s strange because the accomplishment is there; it just didn’t reach completion. This is the pattern. When you announce things that are exciting, that are a part of something, people celebrate you with the promise of completeness. And while that is wonderful, there is something almost slightly dismissive in looking away from the process and focusing ahead toward the bigger goal.

I have lived a life where I have almost won, almost got it, shortlisted, final round, had an exciting call, heartbreaking decision, been in important rooms, and i feel like it is so hard to express the sentiment of these accomplishments, because they are all process, and nobody can ever feel the joy and excitement of moving one step further than I, the person who sweated and toiled and worked towards a goal, a vision, a dream. At the same time, I do not suffer from near-success syndrome: I have won, been chosen, invited, sponsored, analysed —and I know it is because God sees me (as He sees everybody)—but because of the completeness of these wins, it has been easier to say, an I have been celebrated, I have had the pleasure to announce, to win.

But what is so hard to express, and to get others to see, is that I have lost more than I have ever won so I know that the process has to be exciting, even when it’s nothing. And I have come to this point of celebrating the inkling of an opportunity because I realise that waiting till completion to celebrate the process leaves you insatiable, because you will walk down so many promising yellow-brick roads and come to open the door, hungry and looking for the food that will ease your thirst, and find out there is Nothing. No food, no lunch. You will be ghosted, you will lose, things will back out at the last minute, you will find out that so much of life’s biggest things fizzle out, and that is okay. Because wasn’t that meeting so exciting? Wasn’t that interview a blessing?

What a privilege we often overlook, to tell someone about a process, and watch them match the shape of your excitement, even while things are building, or things have stalled. It is such a weird thing, but it is affirming to share reactions with people who care about your bigger picture but never forget that joy can be in the right now or your unhappiness is in the small. It is a rare feat to be seen by someone, anyone, so closely, but it is even rarer to know that the little details in your journey is instrumental to the lives of those you care the most about.