What is success?

After another day spent falling on a rock climb, another three attempts proving unsuccessful. After a restless night and early morning wake up because of worry about what my role is in parenting my sons, how much to grab the steering wheel away from one of them while letting the other go careening into what looks like (to me) is going to be a mistake. After days and weeks of fitful, sporadic writing movements where the more I write, the more I see that there is to write, the more there is left unfinished, unseen, unpublished.

I have been wondering to myself, what if my life right now, my life all along, is actually a picture of success. What if my ordinary life, even if I’m messing up with my kids and my kids are messing up too, even if I never send another rock climb, even if I write the book but it never gets published, or if I never make another paycheck— what if this life is a smashing success? 

I don't think I'm a failure, though society may deem me one. A failed life would be me curling up into a ball, not parenting anymore, not climbing anymore, not writing anymore, not working anymore, not praying anymore for anyone at all. 

The only way I can define my life as a success is just that I keeping on keeping on, taking each day as it is given to me, seeking out who I’m supposed to be, listening for the next step, stepping through the next open doorway-- even if I find that I’m going to remain small, to live a small, ordinary life, loving the people around me the best I can, in small, ordinary ways: a meal, a walk, a conversation, a bunch of half-way said prayers (and if anyone insists, a hug).