Failure is universal. It’s never fun, but we’ll all confront it at some point, be it through bad luck, bad behavior, or just sucking at something. Why are we so bad at talking about it, and why are we so afraid of it? The stories of Failure Week are here to help remind us that the world doesn't end when something goes horribly wrong, and that we can learn as much from life's disasters as its successes.
Though it happened four years ago, I can force myself to remember the details: I was dressed in a custom orange and royal blue Indian ensemble, embroidered with beads and sequins. I was so nervous when I entered the hotel lobby that I barely looked up through the fake lashes I’d put on for the first time. The big-occasion jitters hadn’t gotten to him, though: He pulled off a magic trick on the stage, making the ring appear from behind my ear. Then he got down on one knee, and I remember hearing a gasp from the crowd—more than hundred of our friends and family who'd gathered for Rahul* and my engagement ceremony.
My friends gushed about the way he put the ring on my finger, and pictures of the moment went up on Facebook within minutes. “She found her magic,” one of my best friends captioned it. My dad opened four bottles of champagne, and my fiancé and I crossed our arms with the glasses and sipped, looking into each other's eyes.
Eight months after that very public display, our engagement was over. I lived in New York at that time, and he lived in Seattle. The official decision happened in a rather nasty meeting where he sat down with both his parents and mine—while I was not there. Even though I’d felt suffocated and unhappy, a huge part of me desperately wanted to cling to that relationship. I just didn't know how to go from engaged to not-engaged anymore.
But I wasn't going to get my last shot. My dad called me up and confirmed that it was over. Apparently, Rahul’s mom had written me off as dominant and demanding. She nudged Rahul to spill the details on some deeply personal moments between us as proof. To have my privacy betrayed like that, and to imagine the embarrassment my parents must have felt sitting through it, tore me apart.
It relieved me that my parents were supportive of the decision, but in the months that followed, I couldn’t help feeling like a failure. No one I knew among my close friends or family had gone through a broken engagement. I was 23; I didn’t know how to deal with it or how to talk about it. People didn’t know how to talk about it to me either. Every time someone said, “Oh no, I’m so sorry,” it drove home that I was supposed to feel bad. I told myself that a horrible thing has happened to me, and that it’s my fault I couldn’t make it work. When the friends who’d attended my engagement ceremony just ignored that the relationship had imploded, I took it to mean that it was something to hide, even from those that love you.
It was my first winter in New York City, but nothing about it was as magical as I’d seen in Serendipity or Home Alone 2. I felt miserable all the time, and I wouldn’t step out of my room. I’d decided that I wasn’t brave enough to visit my family over Christmas break, either. I was afraid of the questions I thought my aunts and uncles would ask, and I was afraid I’d be judged for returning home unengaged.
I would've felt more confident to face people if I'd had answers for why things turned out this way. But I hadn't found a way to rationalize it to myself. I was internally screaming with thoughts of "Why me?" every day. It definitely had to do with the way I was raised and conditioned to succeed at everything—I was the good kid who excelled in class, was the school captain, got into the best college, led the debating society, had page-one bylines in one of the biggest national newspapers when I was barely 18, got through Columbia Journalism School on my first try, and now this relationship had dragged me down with a stamp of failure I'd never experienced before.
One month after our engagement blew up, I found out he was sexting with a high school friend. His new relationship didn't help me move on. It made it worse. I was already bitter, and now I felt more of a failure because this was no longer just the end of a relationship, it seemed like he chose someone better.
It took me more than a year to realize that getting out of that relationship was actually what I needed. There were a lot of red flags I'd ignored: He’d lied to me about his smoking habit, and when I visited him, I found his desk littered with weed. I didn’t judge him, but I was angry because I felt I didn't truly know the person I was engaged to. And I felt cheated because he admitted he was smoking with his roommate when he cut our Skype conversations short to “have dinner.” In those moments, I had wondered why he didn’t have time for his girlfriend, and later fiancée. I'd felt I wasn't exciting enough to hold on to him.
I couldn’t go back to dating seriously for a long time because I feared that when I opened up, men would assume "broken engagement = crazy girl." The best thing that happened from having this me-time was that I embraced the art of mindfulness and self-awareness. I learned about self-care because I couldn’t think of a single answer when my therapist first asked me: “What do you do for relaxation?”
Relaxation? No one ever told me to go relax, I thought. I’d gone my entire life chasing one goal after another. I’d depended entirely on my relationships for my happiness and self-worth. I'd never connected with myself to understand the root of my anxieties and insecurities. I figured I’d said yes to Rahul because that relationship was like checking a box for me. I’d naively believed that getting married should be the logical next step. I realized I wasn’t mature enough or even mentally ready for such a commitment. Hell, I’d even agreed to give up my ambitions in New York to move to Seattle, where there wasn’t a single journalism job I was crazy about, after grad school.
It took me almost 18 months to get there, but I learned to put my feelings first. Now when I went on dates, I knew exactly what I was looking for and what behavior could hurt me. I knew when to walk away, and I knew not to indulge someone just because my self-esteem was low that day. I gave up on even getting occasional drinks because I realized that alcohol always ended up taking me to a sad place. Thankfully, I had friends who loved me enough to plan game nights and movie nights and drink home-made chai instead.
I taught a dance class one semester, I wrote postcards and thank-you notes to the people I loved. I was trying to replace the negativity inside me with gratitude. I went to a couple of Buddhist teaching sessions, biked the entirety of Central Park almost every weekend that summer, and planned a real picnic with my friend Erica. Just unpacking our lavish spread—sandwiches, a cheese plate, veggies and dips, fresh fruits—filled me with a sense of achievement I hadn't felt in the longest time. I can do it, I thought. I can find happiness again.
There were obviously days when it still hurt—when Facebook's Memory feature sent me notifications and photos of "This happened two years ago today" or when I bawled at the realization that I'd left hundreds of my original newspaper bylines from three years of reporting at Rahul's parents' place before moving to New York. But I learned to ask for help on those bad days. This entire phase taught me that there's more to life than constantly seeking someone who'd love me passionately, or regretting someone who didn't. I'd always known that I was intensely emotional, but now I'd learned that if I needed a lot of love to feel alive, I'd have to give it to myself. I needed to be whole on my own. I wasn't waiting for someone to complete me anymore.
*Names have been withheld or changed to protect the privacy of those involved.
