For years, I thought and preached that what really mattered was what you accomplished alone. The jobs you labored to get, the late nights you labored to keep them, at your desk, alone. The dormant volcano you climbed by yourself to prove you could still climb things after heartache; the borders you walked across alone; the airports you landed in alone; the dark hostel rooms in which you woke with the call to prayer resounding in your ears. Alone. All the miles you biked alone and all the meals you were proud to eat, alone. The apartments you moved into and painted and fixed up alone, with the garage sale toolbox you bought alone. How else could you get and deserve credit in your own heart unless you did it all alone? For all their benefits, partnerships hold you back and compromise your vision, I said. Partnerships, I thought, were proof that two people were required to carry you where you needed to go, and I most certainly equated that with weakness. But here is the truth: I have always been afraid of being on a team because it is hard enough to let myself down. I couldn’t bear having the weight of a team’s hopes on me as well. Maybe that’s part of what makes me cry in nearly every episode of Friday Night Lights.
Erica Cantoni, “Let Yourself Off the Hook” (via brightwalldarkroom)
