When I was seven, I won something. I was at a school event where they had a jar full of jellybeans, and everyone was guessing how many jellybeans were in the jar. I wrote something like 7500 on the little slip of paper for my guess, and that was the closest anyone got, so I got the prize: a pingpong set. Which was super cool — except that I had meant to guess 750, I just didn’t know my place values well enough, so I’d added the extra zero.
This is kind of how winning has felt for me my entire life: it doesn’t happen often, and when it does, it always comes with some sort of caveat or other embarrassing undermine-ment that sits in my brain and pokes at me, so that I can’t enjoy it. I only ever scored one goal my four years of playing lacrosse, and that was in practice. I did well in school…but I always had to hide it, because it was a social negative as a girl in suburbia in the 80s. I went to a great college…but for the longest time, when I told people about that, I also felt the need to mention the four colleges that I applied to that I hadn’t gotten into (even though I loved Stanford, and based on most of the Yalies I know, if I’d gotten in there Early Admission I would have spent four years being annoyed all the time). I got into a film school with a great reputation…but it was in utter turmoil for the five years I was there, leaving my class feeling abandoned. My films at film school went to a couple of festivals…but never gained any attention. I’ve gotten some of my writing published…but only online. My feature doc premiered at DOC NYC…but didn’t have a great festival run. It won an award…but at a festival that gave everyone an award, like participation trophies. I got into the Stowe Narrative Lab…but I didn’t get a fellowship.
And if you are getting a sense that this is a me problem rather than a the world problem…you’re the one who gets a pingpong set! Okay not really, I can’t afford to give all of my subscribers pingpong sets, even though there’s only 43 of you…See, there, right there, I’m doing it again. Basically, I’ve always had trouble owning the good things that happen to me, especially when I’ve actually earned them. I have almost a physical difficulty telling people about my achievements without feeling like I’m being a braggadocious asshole. The idea of having to talk about or “sell” myself is something I’ve always equated with bullshitting, because deep down I feel like, if I were good enough, people would just see it, and I wouldn’t have to point it out to them.
Where’s that come from? It’s probably a combination of things. There’s definitely a cultural component of, “Anyone can make it in America if they just keep their heads down and work hard!” — an at best misguided and at worst dishonest white-male-who-came-on-the-Mayflower assumption if ever there was one. There’s also an, “It’s unseemly” thing that comes from a combination of that “Girls don’t talk about themselves” thing I internalized growing up, and the suburban desire to not stand out combined with the WASP-based effortlessness aesthetic that I took on as a teen, not knowing at the time that, well, yeah, things are effortless for people who’ve grown up with everything given to them. But I think, fundamentally, it’s a sense I’ve always had of knowing that I was smart, which meant I could learn things, but never believing that I fundamentally had talent. Talent is the thing you’re born with that makes you destined for greatness, and it drives the movie narratives I’ve been watching since I was a kid, where success and a happy ending are inevitable for those who have it (unless it’s a tragedy, and those were rare in the 80s), and those who don’t are out of luck. In a lot of ways, the Myth of Talent is like the Myth of True Love: they make for great story arcs, but they also make a lot of people who think other people have them and they don’t feel shitty.
It took me until age 35 to realize that “The One” wasn’t a thing, and it’s taken me until now to get that talent is something you can develop — if you have confidence. That’s really what it took me all these years to acquire: the belief that my stuff is as good as anyone else’s stuff, and the only reason it’s not succeeding at the level I want it to is because I need to get it out there, and the only way to do that is, you guessed it: confidence. It’s not like I developed an appetite for rejection — mmm, delicious delicious rejection! It tastes like a snow cone made out of iron filings! — but I finally got, for real, that the losses don’t define me. And neither do the wins, but that’s what people want to hear about. Oh, and they also want you to be funny, which is something else I knew I could do, but, again, just didn’t have the confidence to apply when it mattered. Not that I’m going to go out now and do stand-up because, with my insecurities, that might actually make me spontaneously combust. I’m just going to learn to be less afraid to show that side of myself more often. Because “selling yourself” isn’t about pretending you’re something you’re not in order to give people what they want, it’s about giving them the best parts of you and seeing if they fit with the best parts of them.
Last week I found out that I got into The Writers Lab for 2023, and I think maybe I’m finally ready to both make the most of it and enjoy it. I always was a late bloomer — didn’t get my period until I was 14, didn’t have a boyfriend until I was 21, didn’t learn to wear clothes that fit until I was 24 — so it kind of makes sense that a lab for women over 40 would be right for me. Normally I would now tell you about all the other contests I didn’t win, and opportunities I’ve blown, and all of the ways that this could go wrong, because believe me, I’ve thought about all of those things, a lot.
But I’m not gonna.
First, huge deserved congratulations. Second, by all means show off the funniness, because it isn't something very many people have, and while I think it can be honed, I do think it's one of those TALENT thingies you mentioned earlier. Third, the reflexive batting down of compliments and evil-eye-averting ptooey ptooey-ing of accolades isn't just a WASP thing, because I do it too. And it annoys people, because they want to celebrate the things we minimize and slough off in company. Since it takes so much luck and grit to get any traction in this business, we should stop aiding inertia monsters and societal forces to which we're largely invisible anyway. Go, Betsy!
Congratulations, Betsy!!! This honor is so well deserved!!!