The Road Paved with Disappointment

About a month ago, I was driving to downtown Franklin, Tennessee with a friend and spilling my fearful, panicking guts from the passenger’s seat. I had just received news that I would not be getting a job I had spent three interviews preparing to accept. I was rundown and disappointed, feeling lost in the jungle of post-graduation.

“You should just drive across the country,” she said lightheartedly, and laughter ensued. Drive across the country, what an absurd idea. But then the joke got taken one step too far and all of a sudden we were plotting about who would pay my rent for a month and where I could stop to stay the night in Oklahoma and Arizona and California. Suddenly, I was calling my parents and asking if I would still be allowed to come home for Christmas if I made a rather (arguably) reckless decision and drove my tired, thirteen-year-old car across the country. (It took some negotiation but I am, indeed, still allowed to come home.) We sat in a coffee shop for an hour and hammered out the plan and concluded that there really wouldn’t be one, that sometimes you have to take a leap, whether or not it looks like a promising landing, and whether or not people are going to speculate about where your mind might have run off to.

I have been in California for almost three weeks now and it has been the sweetest inhale of grace. The soil I have been planted in has been a mixture of challenge and beauty and standing face to face with the fears and hopes that are currently swirling around in my heart. I have had coffee and dinner and afternoon adventures with dear friends and family that I don’t often get the opportunity to spend time with, and those hearts have been overly generous with their kindness and wisdom. I have been given a clearer vision for dreams that have been entrusted to me and feel fueled up to chase after those things with a reenergized hustle and my sense of adventure in tact.

But I have to say, the road that led me here – to moments filled with grace and kindness and driving 2,000 miles to California – has not been an easy one. About a week ago I received a call from a place that I had applied to work at in the fall. The first time around they passed me up, but now they have an open position for the summer and want me to fill it. This is a place I devoted most of my time dreaming of for the better part of last fall. It wasn’t just a job; it was the job – the job I wanted to fill my first year after graduation. The position they offered me is not the one I originally applied for, but it’s still a position and it still means I get to go and be in a new place, serving at the most beautiful camp in British Columbia.

When I received the phone call, I really wanted to be happy. I wanted to embrace the opportunity in a two-armed hug and dance around the living room, basking in the joy that they were impressed by my application. But, instead, sadness overwhelmed me. The first time, when I received an email saying that I would not be offered the position, I threw a that’s-just-not-where-God-wants-me blanket over the disappointment and stuffed it way deep down in my heart, hoping to shut the sadness up and move on. But there I was, hands full of a new opportunity, and standing face to face with months filled with very real disappointment that I had been stuffing down in an attempt to bypass any amount of hurt. The sadness that I had ignored the first time was creeping up and prodding at my heart, demanding my attention.

Anybody who has had any measure of success will tell you that the road they walked to that success was paved with failure and hardship and disappointment. I think often when we arrive at something that looks like a destination – because it is inherently filled with moments of joy and goodness – we conclude that we cannot possibly harbor any sort of resentment toward all the disappointment that met us on our way. I think ignoring the disappointment is a good way to give it permission to define you.

Goodness along the roads we walk does not negate the sadness; success does not negate the failure, and just because we receive moments of affirmation does not mean that the disappointments don’t call into question our identity and worth and qualifications. It doesn’t make you spoiled or ungrateful to acknowledge and mourn the disappointments, even as you know that they pave the way to better things; it makes you human with a very real human heart that bares bruises when it is kicked hard. Disappointment and gratefulness are not mutually exclusive, and they can both be felt alongside one another honorably.

Over the last month I have noticed the way that ignoring the disappointments has been holding me back. I have dressed disappointment up as this huge, scary monster that I’ve refused to confront and no longer wish to encounter or deal with. It has gotten harder for me to take risks and put myself out there for fear that the disappointment monster will show itself and gobble me up for good. Confronting the disappointment, though, has shrunk the beast that I have fabricated in my mind and reminded me what kind of relationship we were meant to have with it. Disappointment is very real and possesses a mean right hook, but it does not get to, nor is its intention to, define us. It does not wish to hold us back but to prepare us for the true destination.

When we look disappointment in the eyes we see that it was always meant to be a guide, a lamp lighting our way, but never a monster attempting to knock us down on the path. Disappointment whispers to us, keep going, this isn’t it but you’re going to get there—but if we plug our ears and refuse to listen to it, we will always be misguided. The road paved with disappointment can lead to a job you never knew you wanted or a new city or running around in the ocean, laughing hysterically on Valentine’s Day, but that doesn’t make the road any less difficult. And our ability to stare in the face of our disappointments and failures and mistakes, and take away their ability to define us while allowing them room to guide us, will make the destination that much sweeter.

[Photo by Juliette Kibodeaux.]

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The End of An Era: Saying Goodbye to Windrose

Hi friends,

Announcement (sounds so formal, doesn’t it?):

It's the end of an era.

I’ve decided that, after nearly 8 years of telling stories of navigating life, this season of Windrose is drawing to a close.

Even Here: Words for When You're Wandering

When I was 22 years old, I visited the desert for the first time.

A metaphorical desert, if we’re getting technical.

I was fresh out of college, starry-eyed and eager to begin my post-grad life. I had big ‘ole me-centered dreams: a shiny, brag-worthy PR job in the music industry! An apartment with an exposed brick wall that (somehow) would fit an upright piano! A committed relationship with a kind, goofy man!

I got exactly none of those things.

To summarize an entire year’s worth of emotion: I was devastated.

What is Home?

Late last night, I flew back into town after a week away, the city lights covering the Valley like a blanket of incandescent flowers. I’ve flown into Phoenix at least a dozen times at this point. Usually, I can identify a handful of landmarks, like my antenna-scarred South Mountain or the twinkling lights of the bridges spanning Tempe Town Lake.

Flying into Nashville, however, was always different.

I Don't Live Here Anymore

I recently returned to Nashville for the first time since moving to Phoenix five months ago.

Before my reunion, I often said that the word “home” could apply to both Nashville and Phoenix. Nashville is my home. Phoenix is my home. I could find that home-sweet-home feeling in both cities.

During my 8 days back, I frequented my old haunts. The brickwalled coffee shop still serves the meanest mocha in town. The hillside winery still proves to be a worthwhile spot to sip away a sunny Sunday afternoon. The hip burger joint still offers a lovely evening to dine with friends, new and old. The lime-green Mexican restaurant on the corner of Whitebridge still feels like a queso-soaked refuge.

There were many “stills,” but there were changes, too.

Why did you move?

A cardstock print sits propped against the lamp on my desk: a taupe watercolor swipe outlining a peakside Saguaro, the sun a tiny ring above. Beneath this minimalist illustration are these words in typeface: “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

I happened upon this notecard-sized print on the way out of a shop last weekend, after already having completed another purchase. It was the last print of its kind in the pile. I had to have it. I returned to the cashier: “This one, too.”

You see, this verse has been a thread weaving through my story, simple words spoken by a prophet long dead, a passage of comfort I’ve returned to again and again since my pilgrimage to the desert four years ago, when I inked a cactus on my wrist.

The Good Old Days

Last week was National Margarita Day.

I did not, however, celebrate the holiday. Truthfully, I’ve yet to find THE Mexican place here in Phoenix. You know the one: gaudy decorations, cheap food, even cheaper margaritas.

But there’s a Mexican restaurant at the corner of Charlotte and Whitebridge in Nashville, TN.

You may have heard of it.

Witching Hour (or, Fighting Off Demons at 3 am with a Box Cutter)

Between the hours of 3 - 4 am, I find myself awakened by nothing in particular. The room is silent. There is no sound outside. No loud car horns. No dogs barking.

I’m upset.

I wish it was something other than just me. Then I could stop it. Nothing is to blame. It feels like moments have passed since I closed my eyes. The moments of a long dreamless sleep last about 4 hours.

10 Life Lessons This Cross-Country Move is Attempting to Teach Me

There are a few lessons life has attempted to teach me since my move — all things that I haven’t yet spiced up into a full essay, but deserve to be memorialized by my metaphorical pen nonetheless.

So I present a collection of lessons I’ve learned — and am still learning — in the last 3 months.

What Will Your Life Look Like?

Tomorrow marks 3 months.

Three months here, sharing a zip code with Saguaros.

“So how is Phoenix?” a friend asked me over the phone as I sat on my balcony beneath glowing string lights, a pour of raspberry wine in my hand. The sun was setting, painting the eastern mountains with rosy swipes of redemption.

How has Phoenix been these last three months?

What is it Trying to Tell You, if Only You’d Listen?

I went on a date recently. Two glasses of Riesling, pleasant conversation, and a perfectly amicable guy — it was an altogether fine evening.

However, I wasn’t interested in a second date.

Not because of any run-for-the-hills red flags. Not because I didn’t think he was cute. Not because we didn’t get along. I simply — wasn’t interested.

There’s no better way to explain it. No fear-based avoidance of the potential for a healthy relationship. No disdain for commitment that needs a heavy round of therapy to work through. Nothing deeper than the inner sense that a second date just wasn’t necessary.

But, I said yes to getting dinner again with him.

The Other Side of Yes

I’m a No Girl.

In many ways, this is a good thing. I’m able to confidently decline invitations that disinterest me.

“Want to go whitewater rafting?” No thank you, I’m comfy right here on the bank.

“Want to do a shot?” No thank you, I’ll take my liquor with lime juice and Triple Sec, plz.

“Want to try this carrot cake?” No thank you, Harry, I can’t eat gluten.

“Want to go to Broadway?” No thank you, I’d prefer to go to bed.

In many ways, however, being a No Girl originates less from personal boundaries and more from fear. Fear and I happen to be pretty tight; we talk on the daily. Fear has been the primary consultant for many of my life decisions, in fact.

A Song for Growth

A year ago, a friend of mine got a job at a well known tech company. He had been slogging through the interviews, and he finally got an offer. Obviously he deserved it. He was a hard worker, and his attitude for success and life was admirable to say the least. I knew he was beyond qualified.

But at the time, I was on a career path I couldn’t see myself being happy in. I had made the mistake of staying in the industry mainly for the money. Every month in the industry was a reminder of how much I did not want to stay. It created a nasty cycle of overthinking and career angst. Feelings of inadequacy and existentialism rooted themselves deep inside me. I couldn’t focus on anything and was utterly disconnected from the work I was doing.

I admit I wasn’t happy for him.

Dreams, Life, CareerChelsey SatterleeFebruary 28, 2016Featured, Archive 16Comment

The Road Paved with Disappointment

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