I had to hide the fact that I was a failure until the mistake could be erased from existence. So this is perhaps a good point to start.
Probation.
It's self-enforced, but it's there nonetheless. You must realize - and of course, you do, because you are a part of it too - that there are different ways to deal with failure. There are some who accept it gracefully; I am not one of them. In fact, I cannot really comprehend the ability to move on from failure, to release it from that niggling part in the back of the mind that won't let something go. I am one of those people who allows failure - or success - to define me. It is a bad habit, one of my worst. But not only is failure unacceptable, it is unmentionable. I will do anything in my power to ignore the problem until it goes away.
So here's the morbid punchline: Last year I failed a class. A very important class. The kind of class that could stop you from moving on to your next year of school.
This didn't come as a surprise. The failure was pushed into existence by an assortment of social and emotional imbalances that I'd never had to deal with before, and helped along by a major technical failure and loss of data. Basically, a completely bullshit excuse. I would not have even listened to a student who showed up with this kind of excuse come finals week. In my mind, I had failed to keep my turbulent life from interfering with my professional studies, so I deserved to fail.
The semester ended and the summer began. I received official notices regarding the failure and replied dutifully but halfheartedly, and then began outright avoiding them. I don't like reminders of things gone wrong. I tried to pretend it hadn't happened. I told no one. I willed it away.
It was a matter of pride. My dignity, my reputation as a person of note and of worth, was at stake. I did my best to ignore the obvious fact that people would eventually learn of my failure if I was dropped from my junior-year classes.
I have been pardoned, by adults who would rather see their students succeed than fall apart. I very earnestly believe that if not for such undeserved generosity and understanding, my life would crumble completely. ("It's just a grade," one might say, but not to me; the difference between a pass and a fail is for me one of the only truly important things I can control.) I have been spared.
Academic rebirth.
There is no way, no possible way I cannot succeed now. I have been sponsored by someone who believes that I don't deserve failure, and now it is, in all seriousness, a matter of honor to uphold my end of the unspoken agreement: I must accomplish far more than asked of me, exceed expectations, prove that it was not a mistake to prop me up when I needed it. This is overwork and overachievement as a form of self-defined redemption, or compensation.
The specter of my failure will continue to haunt me, on this excellence-mandatory path it's laid out. I'm grateful, really; the self-imposed, completely demanding, harshly strict probation I've created for myself is perhaps necessary for my success. I needed boundaries and goals, and I got them.
In order to succeed, I suppose I needed to fail.
