The lesson I learned about failure from my high school yearbook

When I was in high school, I was the co-editor of the yearbook, sharing the duties with my friend Sharren.  She was practical and focused; I had grandiose ideas and loved to write. 

In 1989, putting together a yearbook or magazine meant manual labor.  "Paste-up" – putting together the layouts – for a publication was very literal.  We had compact Apple Macintosh desktop computers that would print out the text, and we would cut it out and paste it down to large page mockups to ship out to the printer.  Every week, it was a new spread and a new deadline.  

I fancied myself an artist, and took advanced classes and workshops to hone my skills, dabbling in photography, sculpture, and chalk, among other things.  One thing we didn’t have is graphic design.  That didn’t stop me, however, from going to Sharren and our adviser, Mrs. Dean, with an idea for the yearbook cover design.  The theme was “A Little Bit Crazy” and I wanted the cover to represent that as much as possible; I proposed splashes of color with the title inside, and embossed dots all over for texture.  

I imagined the oohs and ahs we would get when the cover was printed, and I dutifully cut out the shapes to the best of my ability.  I used the hole punch and pasted them to the cover mockup page to achieve the desired embossing.  I remember the dubious looks Sharren and Mrs. Dean gave my masterpiece, but they let me forge ahead.  It was my responsibility, after all.  I had dreams of a magnificent, 3D, progressive yearbook cover with bursts of color that only splashes of paint or fireworks could represent in the late 80s. 

When the first boxes of yearbooks arrived at the school in the journalism room, I slashed open the tape eagerly.  It was going to be fabulous!  I couldn't wait!

Then reality hit me in the face:  the cover was a glaring eyesore.   

Trust me when I say the photo doesn't do it justice.  You may note that the yearbook says "Kristin Z. Vander Hey"... "Z" stood for "Zenith", the made-up middle name I gave myself since I was not given a middle name by my parents.  Which is a whole other story for another time. 

No one said a word to me, but I could see – or imagined I could see – the looks on students’ faces when they picked up their books.  Inside, I groaned.  My masterpiece was nothing like I had envisioned in my head.  Although the inside was stellar, the cover was - in a word – a failure.  The splashes of color were blobs of red, blue, and black.  The embossed dots that were supposed to suggest confetti for a party of epic proportions turned out looking like a crazy toddler stuck a bunch of dirty paper dots on it.  It may, honestly, be one of the ugliest yearbook covers ever.

It feels good to say that publicly; I’ve been ready to own The Great Yearbook Debacle for a long time.  Now, I can laugh (and I hope my classmates do too), because I was 18 and had no idea what I was doing.  What I learned from the experience is that a failure as spectacular as that is a chance to learn something. I feel pretty lucky that I wasn't stuffed in a locker after that. After all, people keep their yearbooks for decades... my eyesore will live on practically forever.  I can also add that a year later, I choked on Chicken a la King in the cafeteria of my college dorm in Cincinnati and had the Heimlich maneuver performed on me in front of the whole freshman class.  One could argue which was more embarrassing.  

This what I will teach my son: sometimes, we fail.  Sometimes, we embarrass ourselves. Allowing for the opportunity to fail may be the only way to get to the next level.  He is already hard on himself and gets frustrated when he gets a strike instead of a base hit when we play baseball.   His father explained batting averages to him, and even at four years old, he got the point.   

My contribution to this particular life lesson won’t include sports statistics, but will go something like this: 

Son,

You will fail; embrace it.  I’ll be 43 this year, and I have failed plenty of times.  There is no use for regrets.  You will do things you wish you hadn’t done, but you will come to learn that those failures open the door for your eventual success.

Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back.  I didn’t study abroad for a year in high school, as I had planned, because I was afraid to go so far away.  I was afraid to leave my friends behind.  I wish I had been braver.

Failure can teach you new things. I failed at learning how to drive a manual transmission.  My father tried to teach me, bless his heart, and I nearly gave him whiplash in that Chevy Citation when I was 16.  I cried and begged him to get me a car I didn’t have to wrestle into submission.  Shortly thereafter, a 1977 Dodge Aspen in a funky shade of tan with upholstered bench seats and an AM radio showed up in the driveway.  I didn’t fail at helping my dad install a new radio with a cassette deck (it’s a miniature reel-to-reel with music on it; I know that sounds weird).  I also didn’t fail to teach myself how to strip the wires and re-connect the stereo speakers when they shook loose.

Don’t fail to right the wrongs.  I failed a friend who was being unfairly criticized at work.  I was mute, paralyzed with inaction.  As time slipped by, I failed to remember how to do the right thing.   Years later, she moved to my hometown and took a job in the same school my mother also worked (which is an amazing series of coincidences), and I made a point of apologizing to her.  It was the best I could do, at the time.

Don’t fail to use your voice.  I failed to speak up when I was assaulted my freshman year in college.  It took me many years to tell anyone, and I just told my sister the name of the person who assaulted me just this year; she knew him.  She listened quietly and said, “All of those years, you pretended it never happened.” Stand up for yourself and others. 

Sometimes, failure is the path you’re meant to take.  Someday, I’ll have to tell you that I failed at marriage.  When I tell you as much of the story as I think you can handle, you might dispute that it is a failure, but a success story, considering where we are now.  I’ll explain that no matter what the situation is, a failed marriage can make someone feel like a complete failure as a person.  You have to find the best way you can to move on from there.

Embrace the small victories within a larger failure. I failed to recognize that my “baby blues” were much more than that, and I needed to see my doctor about postpartum anxiety.  I failed to take proper care of myself when you were born, and my exhaustion surely affected you too.  I didn’t fail, however, to tell you that I loved you every day.  I didn’t fail to feed you and nurture you and smile at you and talk to you.  I didn’t fail to listen when my friend told me to go to the doctor and get help.  

If life is the sum of our choices, then these failures, both small and large, don’t outweigh the rest.  

Go ahead and fail, son, and then you will succeed.  Forgive yourself, and move on.