{"id":482,"date":"2025-11-22T05:52:47","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T05:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/?page_id=482"},"modified":"2025-11-22T07:52:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T07:52:24","slug":"top-ten-ways-youve-failed","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/fiction\/top-ten-ways-youve-failed\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Ten Ways You’ve Failed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicholas Muszynski<\/span><\/p>\n

You failed five minutes ago. Badly. Now, you have to live with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

You look at yourself in the rearview mirror. Honestly,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0an improvement. The blood compliments the redness of your eyes wonderfully. And that gash on your forehead, Oh Man! Wounds are the perfect accessory for that masculine\u00a0bod, especially when\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0raw and throbbing.\u00a0You\u2019ve\u00a0found your vibe,\u00a0everyone\u2019s\u00a0got one and yours is\u00a0Killer<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s just a vibe, you aren\u2019t a real killer, not traditionally. You haven\u2019t killed anyone, at least not yet. But you have been killing it for years. \u201cIt\u201d being your future. You\u2019ve slowly tortured that poor son of a bitch. Yanked fingernails out one by one, then the toenails when you ran out. Bruised your future until the arms were tattooed in blacks and blues. Black and blue circles upon circles upon circles. Beat it with the wrench of incompetence, the pliers of ignorance, and the hammer of inaction. Why did you torture your future? Why the hell did you stab it through the heart five minutes ago? You feel sorry. As if you weren\u2019t the one who killed it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But all that melodrama is the possible concussion talking, or the concoction brewing in your liver, likely both. You haven\u2019t literally killed the imaginary personification of your conceptual future. You\u2019re stupid for even thinking that in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

This can\u2019t be your worst failure. You\u2019re sure of it. You\u2019ve bounced back from failures way worse than this one, just have to remind yourself of them first. You have to think back on your past failures. Find one worse than this most recent one. Make a list of your top ten failures, in order from mild misstep to life-fucking fuck-up. See where this one lands. Find out that it\u2019s not that bad. You\u2019ve done worse and your future survived those.<\/span><\/p>\n

10. Flunked a Spelling Test<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone\u2019s\u00a0flunked a test in their life.\u00a0You\u2019ve\u00a0flunked\u00a0many.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0a good word:\u00a0flunk<\/i>.\u00a0Gives failure\u00a0a jazzy vibe. You\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0fail,\u00a0you\u00a0played to\u00a0a different rhythm. You sang out \u201cFlunk<\/i>\u00a0the establishment!\u201d and told the rules to \u201cGo\u00a0flunk<\/i>\u00a0itself!\u201d as you misspelled four and five-letter words like a\u00a0flunking\u00a0<\/i>rebel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Too bad your kindergarten teacher, Mr. SomethingOrOther, didn\u2019t see it that way. Instead, he saw the F on your test as a sign of \u201can unmotivated student\u201d implying that \u201cmotivated student\u201d isn\u2019t an oxymoron. He told Dad and Dad told you, daily, for weeks. He kept on repeating how this\u2019ll affect your future, that grades determine what college you go to, and that college affects the resum\u00e9. The resum\u00e9 was your household god. Your paterfamilias sacrificed goats for the almighty resum\u00e9 so that it may, when the fateful day arrives, fairly judge his sinful son and grant you entry into the heavenly corporate world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes when he\u2019d lecture you, a strong heat rose from your fingertips to the nape of your neck. The heat seeped into your tiny, tiny brain and you had to yell. You never yelled. The heat compounded in your head. The temperature hit 373.15 K by the end of kindergarten. It was unbearable. Still, you didn\u2019t let that heat out. It boiled your brain juices.<\/span><\/p>\n

You know an F from kindergarten\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0change much.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a failure, sure, but\u00a0even you can\u00a0tell that\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not\u00a0the\u00a0<\/i>failure of this short-short story titled \u201c10. Flunked a Spelling Test.\u201d Are you so worthless that you even failed in the title?<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you trust these titles? Titles that you thought of. If you can\u2019t, what can you trust? Don\u2019t think too hard about it. Try to trust yourself, or pretend to at the very least.<\/span><\/p>\n

9. Forgot Grandma\u2019s Face<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Grandma died and you didn\u2019t say goodbye. It happened sometime in fourth grade, March probably. You saw her last for Christmas and she got you a scarf. It had a tag on it from Target. It cost her $3.95, clearance. You never wore it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later that year you had to write a short story about your family. You wanted to write something for Grandma. It felt like the proper thing to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

You wrote the first line. \u201cEveryone has a grandma, but my grandma is different because she\u2019s mine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Shit start. You erased it and tried again. \u201cMy grandma gave me a scarf last Christmas. I love it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You didn\u2019t, but you couldn\u2019t not love Grandma\u2019s final gift. The story would turn out better if you loved it. Still, you couldn\u2019t bring yourself to lie in the first line.<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter how many times you rewrote the opening line, you never found the words. You could never write the story. There weren\u2019t enough memories or emotions to hit the measly two-page requirement. It took a little under half a year for you to move on. You couldn\u2019t even remember her face. It was featureless, a blank sheet of wrinkled skin. Some grandson you turned out to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

You wrote about going to the carnival with your cousins instead. It meant\u00a0nothing\u00a0and you got a B+. An 88 out of 100 for a story that cheapened the paper you scribbled it on. A blank page\u00a0would\u2019ve\u00a0been better. Fourth grade taught you the most valuable lesson of all: less than\u00a0nothing<\/i> is nearly 90 percent of the way to perfection.<\/span><\/p>\n

You knew that sounded wrong, felt improper. Such a shame that it was correct. Your teacher\u2019s red pen proved it.<\/span><\/p>\n

8. Sold Your GameCube<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You\u00a0made\u00a0sure to bring your old GameCube to college. You\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0remember\u00a0a time\u00a0before you had it.\u00a0Surprisingly\u00a0it still worked.\u00a0Nearly\u00a0twenty years old and it played perfectly. Still\u00a0ran\u00a0Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance\u00a0<\/i>like it did way back when. That was the first game you played on it. Dad must\u2019ve thought three-year-old you could handle the polygonal entrails and pixelated blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

That stuff didn\u2019t bother you, but Dad\u2019s win streak did. He didn\u2019t give you a freebie, you had to earn the win. Surprise, surprise, the preschooler who couldn\u2019t count to ten never won. Your Scorpion never bested Dad\u2019s Sub-Zero. You watched Scorpion get pummeled, shanked, amputated, decapitated, etc. until you stopped playing with Dad.<\/span><\/p>\n

A guy you met in college asked you for the GameCube. You refused at first. Then he pulled out a twenty.<\/span><\/p>\n

You bought two sandwiches from Jimmy John\u2019s with that twenty. They weren\u2019t bad. It was worth it. That GameCube was worth less than a cent to you. You practically stole that guy\u2019s money. And he didn\u2019t catch you! You were one smooth motherfucking criminal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wait, no, you were an entrepreneur! A quick-thinking, quicker-talking businessman turning a worthless GameCube into two hearty sandwiches.<\/span><\/p>\n

You were smart to get rid of that decades-old, heavily-used, scratched-up-from-travel-in- the-trunk-to-your-relatives, recently-retrieved-from-your-basement-because-you-wanted- to-bring-to-college, silver-colored-because-you-begged-Dad-not-to-buy-the-purple-one-because- purple-was-for-girls-despite-the-fact-that-you-really-preferred-how-the-purple-one-looked, worthless GameCube.<\/span><\/p>\n

You feel pain. Nevermind, you don\u2019t. Forget about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

7. Got Too High Too Fast<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWant a hit of this? It\u2019s Peach Cobbler.\u201d Your roommate offered you his cart. You took it, you didn\u2019t tell him that you hadn\u2019t smoked before. You asked what he meant by Peach Cobbler. He explained that it\u2019s the name for the particular strain of weed: fifty percent sativa, fifty percent indica. You nodded like any of that meant something to you.<\/span><\/p>\n

You took a six maybe seven-second hit. Then you took another one right after because that\u2019s what your roommate usually did.<\/span><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long before you started begging him to hold your hand. He accepted with a sigh. The world wasn\u2019t right anymore, your body didn\u2019t belong. If he didn\u2019t hold you together, then it felt like you would split into a million grains of sand.<\/span><\/p>\n

You tried to explain the feeling. That you were no longer a single entity,\u00a0one<\/i>, but that you\u00a0were\u00a0many<\/i>\u00a0forced into the shape of\u00a0one<\/i>. That you were supposed to be so many things, so many distinct things, but being\u00a0many<\/i>\u00a0scared you, and even though being\u00a0one<\/i> was wrong it was comfortable. You didn\u2019t realize how little sense you made.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your roommate let go. He told you to get some sleep and left for the night.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Punched a Kid [Not Hard Enough]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In second grade, Dad told you Santa wasn\u2019t real. He probably got tired of you asking Santa for things like a time machine, a million dollars, and a clone to hang out with. Santa\u2019s magic could have whipped those up in no time, hell, Santa could have solved all your issues if you asked him nicely. Parents can\u2019t do that, they\u2019re boring. Even second graders know not to ask them for fun stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your classmate Ralph insisted Santa was real. A debate broke out between you two. You put forth your evidence: Dad\u2019s testimony that all parents lied to their children about Santa. Ralph countered with his:\u00a0The Polar Express.\u00a0<\/i>Dumbass thought the movie was live-action and that Santa cameoed as himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

The argument went nowhere. You couldn\u2019t argue against childish stupidity. As a last resort, you sucker-punched Ralph in the nose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next thing you knew, you were flat on your ass. Ralph had a cannon for an arm and held nothing back. The full weight of his grade-schooler fury hit you squarely on the chin. You really had it coming. The ordeal taught you to knock someone out with the first hit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Santa believers won that round.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Lost Your Virginity\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0go to prom. You were\u00a0cool<\/i>. Cool enough to have sex.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of going to\u00a0prom\u00a0you\u00a0hung out\u00a0at your girlfriend’s house. You had been dating for a month, and both of you planned for this to be the\u00a0day<\/i>, the culmination of your horny adolescence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her parents were home and you pretended that this didn\u2019t scare the shit out of you. Those glances towards her door and the sweaty palms definitely outed you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even so, the moment had come.<\/span><\/p>\n

You went in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Twenty seconds later, you went out.<\/span><\/p>\n

You left soon after with your tail between your legs. You couldn\u2019t bring yourself to talk to her for some time after that. You didn\u2019t message her back or pick up her calls. She broke up with you during the following week. A whole ass week of ignoring her and you still wondered why she broke up with you at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

You got too excited. And when you get excited you do things fast, really fast.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Cried Watching <\/span>Up<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Before experiencing loss and before spending nights pondering love and death, you watched\u00a0Up.\u00a0<\/i>You didn\u2019t know the word miscarriage yet and you didn\u2019t know why the happy couple became sad. And when they became happy again you didn\u2019t know why. You didn\u2019t know that people could comfort each other in times of sadness and stress, that they had to comfort each other because no one can comfort themselves. Rather, you can\u2019t imagine comforting yourself. And since you can’t, no one else can, otherwise the world\u2019s unfair.<\/span><\/p>\n

These were the first complicated moments of your life. You\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0know\u00a0anything\u00a0but you\u00a0felt<\/i> everything. Then when that fictional woman you had met ten minutes before was gone, you cried. You cried for the lonely old man and mourned those short happy moments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dad laughed. Not even now, being as jaded as you are, can you figure out why he laughed. Was he laughing at the silly animated movie for trying to get him to feel things? Or was he laughing at you for falling for this meaningless crap? At you, who cried real tears for fake people and fake emotions?<\/span><\/p>\n

You learned that crying is wrong. Dad didn\u2019t cry. You can\u2019t cry.<\/span><\/p>\n

You watched\u00a0Up\u00a0<\/i>one more time after that. A decade and a half later during the summer before college. The urge for a return to childhood hit. You stopped it before the opening montage finished. It threatened to make you cry. You didn\u2019t let it win.<\/span><\/p>\n

You wonder if this is why you didn\u2019t cry for Grandma.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Yelled at Dad<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That summer before\u00a0college\u00a0Dad confronted you for choosing\u00a0that\u00a0<\/i>major.\u00a0That\u00a0<\/i>major without job stability or a clear career path.\u00a0That\u00a0<\/i>major gets\u00a0students\u00a0debt, an addiction to their drug of choice, and nothing else. You chose\u00a0that\u00a0<\/i>major.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCollege\u2019s expensive,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m scared you\u2019ll waste your time there. That you\u2019ll change your major anyway and spend all that time and money for nothing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You wanted to say something like \u201cThis is my dream,\u201d or \u201cTime and money mean nothing when I\u2019m pushing towards my dream,\u201d or anything that had the word \u201cdream\u201d in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But you didn\u2019t. You felt stupid thinking that word. Felt stupider when you pictured yourself saying it to Dad. You imagined how he\u2019d laugh at your corny ass speech and how small you\u2019d look. You always imagine yourself smaller than you actually are. You\u2019re doing it now.<\/span><\/p>\n

You see your past self the size of a chihuahua barking up at Dad. You don\u2019t remember what you said, only that you made noise. You could\u2019ve been barking like a rabid animal, it wouldn\u2019t have changed a thing. Nothing you said mattered, you didn\u2019t say what you wanted to.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dad\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0yell back. He\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0show you that kindness, instead, he left the room without another word. You two\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0talk about\u00a0that\u00a0<\/i>major again.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Dived Into the Deep End<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You couldn\u2019t swim in third grade. Nevertheless, you joined a couple of friends on a trip to the nearby waterpark. You told no one you couldn\u2019t swim. Of course, you didn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tyler did a frontflip off the diving board, Andrew did a backflip, Colin cannonballed, and Sam belly-flopped. Your turn came. The diving board wobbled under your weight. Inching towards the edge, you heard your friends call out different tricks for you to try.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c360!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c720!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCorkscrew!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCannonball!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cColin did that already, dumbass!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The voices faded away as you looked down. Your toes curled over the edge. The water waited right below, hungry and antsy. Your smell teased it and it pulsed from desire. It wanted to take all of you. You knew it wouldn\u2019t let go if it caught its prey. The darkness within it held many things, and it wanted to make you one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

You backed away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then you charged forward. You didn\u2019t flip, corkscrew, or cannonball. You slipped. You went too fast and slipped off the diving board. In the air, you thought about time. How fast time moves and how fast you have to move to keep up. The few times things slow down are when you don\u2019t want them to. Like just before you make a big decision. It\u2019s like your brain knows how you\u2019ll fuck up. And this slowness is your brain pleading for you to think again. A part of you always seems to know when you\u2019ll fail. That part\u2019s usually too shy to speak up. You can almost hear it when time slows. When you think you\u2019re nearly able to understand it, time speeds up.<\/span><\/p>\n

You hit the water. You sank, but you didn\u2019t thrash around. The water would\u2019ve won anyway. Falling deeper, you weren\u2019t afraid. Running off the diving board wasn\u2019t a mistake. Alone and content, you embraced the depths.<\/span><\/p>\n

A lifeguard pulled you out. Laying on the hot concrete, staring right at the sun, you realized that you didn\u2019t fail at diving. You failed at feeling fear.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Got Drunk, Crashed Your Car, Waited in the Wreck for Five Minutes Alone and Confused, Told Yourself You\u2019ve Done Worse, Made a Top Ten List of All Your Worst Failures To Convince Yourself That Crashing Your Car Wasn\u2019t in the Number One Spot, Put \u201cCrash Your Car\u201d in the Number One Spot Anyway.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Five minutes ago you were a freshman in college. Now, you\u2019re some drunk asshole who crashed his car.<\/span><\/p>\n

You write a how-to in your head. You call it \u201cHow To Crash Your Car Like a Proper Ass.\u201d It goes,<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 1.<\/span> Drive to a party you know you\u2019ll leave drunk.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 2.<\/span> Shotgun two Four Lokos. You can\u2019t stop at one, that\u2019s not enough. It\u2019ll taste like shit. You deserve nothing better.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 3.<\/span> Take a shot of Vodka, a shot of Gin, a shot of Tequila, another shot of Vodka, and a final shot of Vodka. Do all that in forty-five minutes and you\u2019re golden.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 4.<\/span> Take a long hit of some guy\u2019s weed pen. Brag about how you usually smoke Peach Cobbler. How it fucks others up but does nothing to you. Actually, mock the guy for smoking such weak shit. Laugh at his puny pen. Fill those vapor breaths with clever jokes. Jokes about size, those are the funniest and painfully clever. So painful that you cough. Finish by saying your pen is the superior one. Bigger too. Don\u2019t whip it out, though. This isn\u2019t the place for that. Still talking about weed pens, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 5.<\/span>\u00a0Puke. Watch all that wasted\u00a0fun juice\u00a0<\/i>splash in the toilet bowl. Want it, crave it. Imagine diving in. Imagine the red, stringy chunks\u00a0float\u00a0around you. Imagine how much\u00a0the acid\u00a0and liquor burn. Get lost in the porcelain bowl, let the swirling\u00a0purge fluid\u00a0<\/i>mesmerize you. That used to be\u00a0in<\/i> you. It shouldn\u2019t be out. It must go back in. You must become whole again. Blink. Refocus. Flush it. Don\u2019t let anyone else know you puked. They might not give you more drinks if they do. They might even kick you out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 6.<\/span> Make one hell of a scene. Push your way to the center of the biggest room. Just scream. No words, words are useless. They don\u2019t say shit. Words are good for faking it. For pretending to care and acting like you know. They\u2019re good for a B+, but screams are better for honoring Grandma. Really expresses the pain she must\u2019ve felt when her grandson wasn\u2019t there to say goodbye.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 7.<\/span>\u00a0Don\u2019t\u00a0get kicked out. Punch the guy\u00a0who\u2019s\u00a0trying to kick you out. Hit him in the chin, dead on. A significant fucking strike.\u00a0It\u2019d\u00a0make Dana White and all those\u00a0roided-up UFC\u00a0guys\u00a0blush. Smile as he crumbles. Say something\u00a0cool<\/i>. Say, \u201cFlunk<\/i> you, Ralph!\u201d The guy\u2019s not named Ralph. It\u2019s a callback. No one else gets how magnificent and poignant it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 8.<\/span> Scamper out of the party like a small rabid dog. Don\u2019t order an Uber, don\u2019t call your roommate to pick you up, don\u2019t walk. Drive. Don\u2019t drive home. Drive somewhere else.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 9.<\/span> Drive. So. Mother. Fucking. Fast. Some Vin Diesel, Dominic Toretto type shit. Become\u00a0Fast & Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Tokyo Drift,\u00a0<\/i>whatever the fourth one\u2019s called, fuck it! become\u00a0Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, Super Circuit, Double Dash!!<\/i>, become those two exclamation marks, you fucking love\u00a0Double Dash!!!<\/i>, add that third exclamation mark because why not! lose all punctuation screw it you\u00a0dont\u00a0need commas or apostrophes where\u00a0youre\u00a0going\u00a0youre\u00a0going to 80 miles per hour land the happiest place on earth now\u00a0your\u00a0driving to 90 miles per hour world the\u00a0happiester\u00a0place on this oily grimy dirty blue and green marble called earth can this jalopy hit 100 it sure as shit cant but that\u00a0wont\u00a0stop you baby you want to die. You want to die?\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0not true.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0probably wrong. Think about it,\u00a0if you really, really wanted to die you\u00a0could\u2019ve\u00a0done it many times over by now. For starters, you could have repeated Step 3\u00a0ad infinitum\u00a0<\/i>instead of\u00a0ad nauseam<\/i>. Let your foot off the gas. Slow down. Think. But there\u2019s not enough time. Step 10 has to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 10<\/span>. Hit something. A bump, a pothole, a squirrel, anything. You won\u2019t see it. Swerve into a ditch. Don\u2019t die. Assholes refuse to die.<\/span><\/p>\n

You chuckle at the little how-to. It\u2019s pathetic and that makes it funny.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s 3 a.m., someone\u2019s bound to drive by eventually. And when they do, they\u2019ll call 9-1-1, they might even make sure you\u2019re okay. If they do check on you, you\u2019ll smile at them and say, \u201cIs this not the McDonald\u2019s drive-thru?\u201d They won\u2019t find it funny, that\u2019s why you will. And you know who you\u2019ll have to talk to? Dad. There\u2019s no avoiding that shitshow. What\u2019ll he do? Well, there\u2019ll be a lecture, there\u2019s always a lecture. You\u2019d try to write it out in your head, but you know that\u2019d take up at least a hundred brain cells of space. With all that drinking, you\u2019re probably down to a few thousand. Will he let you go back to college? Don\u2019t ask stupid questions, dumbass. You know the answer.<\/span><\/p>\n

You open the car door and fall out. You puke on the dirt. It tastes like Vodka.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dirt gets under your fingernails as you crawl away. There\u2019s a beetle in the way. You picture yourself crushing it, but you don\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re failing right now. Badly.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re\u00a0not thinking right. You keep on thinking weird shit, scary shit, terrible images you\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0imagine, terrible sentences you\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0think. But you did imagine them, you did\u00a0think\u00a0them. Can you ignore them forever? Pretend\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0the perverted\u00a0creations from an isolated corner of the mind?\u00a0That this\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0you<\/i>?<\/span><\/p>\n

You have no one but yourself right now. No one\u2019s here to help you up and pat the dirt off you. There isn\u2019t a shoulder in sight to cry on. Did you realize that you\u2019re crying? Because you are. You are crying.<\/span><\/p>\n

Crying feels good. It shouldn\u2019t. Criers are sad and boring or they\u2019re babies. A new thought enters, one that isn\u2019t terrible. \u201cGo on, you don\u2019t have to stop.\u201d It\u2019s not a voice you\u2019ve heard, but it\u2019s been hidden in your mind for too long. It\u2019s raspy and the words shake ever so slightly. You can hear their lips trembling, their throat tightening. Whoever said this was tired and beautiful. She was warm too.<\/span><\/p>\n

You listen to a voice\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0not your own, and you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0stop crying. You\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want to stop the tears as they warm your cheeks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nNicholas Muszynski You failed five minutes ago. Badly. Now, you have to live with it. You look at yourself in…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “Top Ten Ways You’ve Failed”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"parent":14,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-482","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/482\/revisions\/510"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}