Broken Pedestals

As a music teacher where my daily interaction with other instructors in my content area is limited, I've come to join a number of music teacher Facebook groups. We share ideas and ask advice (okay, other people ask advice - I'm still too afraid to do that). At least a couple of times each month, one of my colleagues shares about a tragedy that's occurred at their school and asks advice on how to deal with it, and the responses are always split on what a teacher's role should be: to remain an image of strength so that students know that they are secure or to display their emotions so that students know that they are allowed to be human in their reactions.
I honestly don't fully remember how most any of my teachers, or other adults for that matter, reacted in times of tragedy. What I do know is that, even when they showed humanity, I tended to see my roles models as pillars of strength. Seeing only their slightest of imperfections, I placed them on high pedestals. Their greatness was something that I aspired to achieve, but that I feared I'd never match. They were images of perfection, and I was anything but.
I still vividly remember the day one of those pedestals came tumbling down. It was my first one-on-one coffee date with my favorite teacher after I'd graduated high school. One of my biggest role models, she was (and still is) a picture of the type of person I wanted to grow to be: a strong, independent, and caring woman and an extremely skilled teacher. I knew from being in her classes for two trimesters that she wasn't perfect, but her flaws and mistakes that I'd seen were ones I viewed as fun quirks - nothing earth-shattering. But on that particular night she shared that she'd recently been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and that she was concerned that I'd develop one as well (turns out I probably already had one - I just didn't recognize it as such). That night's conversation threw me for a loop not just for the rest of the night but for the days and weeks that followed. I struggled to process it, facing that task alone as I felt I couldn't share the information with anyone who actually knew her. At the time I thought it was about trying to understand why she would tell me, about why she thought I was at risk, and about how I was supposed to deal with the information. It took me years to realize that what I was really trying to process was the fact that the pedestal I'd put her on had been broken, that this person who I had looked up to as an image of strength turned out to be human. I'd long been an advocate for the idea that "teachers are people too" - but it turns out that graduating and actually seeing their adult human sides was shocking at times.
Learning to process and cope with the idea of this first broken pedestal turned out to be a positive experience in more ways than one. As I got older and continued to struggle dealing with my own imperfections, my dad started to share his own shortcomings with me. I was just as shocked, but this time I was also relieved. When I judge my driving, he shares his own mishaps. When I judge my fear of showing imperfections, he admits that he doesn't like to do things he's not good at or hasn't tried before while other people are watching. When I struggle with the all-encompassing nature of managing an anxiety disorder, he shares that his diabetes is not only a physical disease but one that means carrying a mental burden every day. I'd always seen my dad as perfect and had convinced myself that I'd never live up to the example he's set for me. His broken pedestal has allowed me to feel less isolated in the face of my imperfections.
For a while, I started to accept my imperfections and see them as normal aspects of a human existence. Though the phrase had been floating around my head for almost a decade, I finally started to claim my "perfectly imperfect" identity (imperfect because I'm human, but perfect because God made me the person that I am). And then life happened, and as my mental health tumbled, so did my confidence, and I started to put people on pedestals again. Even the ones who were dealing with imperfections seemed to have figured out how to manage them and there I was crumbling; knowing that I'd once figured out how to cope and found myself no longer able to made me feel even more inferior. Meanwhile, I found myself thrust into new environments with new communities of people who seemed to have everything in their lives together.
And then I watched another pedestal crack. When I joined a new choir filled with talented people who clearly lived their faith daily, I found myself constantly feeling inferior not only in my role as part of the group but as a person in general. I longed to feel comfortable as my flawed self in the midst of the group - and I found my sense of belonging through the person I would have least expected. She's the kind of person who stands out in any group: talented, pretty, kind, filled with joy, and a natural leader. We chatted often, and it felt like we were connected somehow, but I was also extremely intimidated. Often singing the same voice part, I feared she'd discover my imperfection and inferiority. It wasn't until our most recent concert that I began to really see her human side - starting with her admission that she knew she'd probably forget some of the music and just make up something that would fit in with the other parts and continuing when she shared with our entire audience her struggles in realizing that she'd spent her whole life living for other people rather than being the person God had made her to be. After that evening, our conversations moved from mostly shallow small talk to sharing more about the tough stuff we'd faced through life. As our friendship has grown, she's become a reminder to me that no matter how well people seem to have their life put together on the outside, we never really know what's going on underneath.
A couple of weeks ago, my journey with broken pedestals came full circle when I had a lunch date with that same favorite teacher whose human side had rocked my world. In the times when I'm feeling good about life or when I'm struggling with anxiety but managing it, I've seen her as one of my greatest supports. But in the times when I'm not holding it together very well, I'm scared to reach out. She's always seemed to figure out how to conquer living with anxiety, and I fear that she'll judge me if she sees that I'm not managing to do the same (yes, I realize that's anxiety brain talking). As we got to talking and catching up on how the last 2.5 years have gone, I learned that last year wasn't a particularly great year for her either, and she's been taking some time to just focus on herself. Because no matter how well you cope, sometimes life throws crappy situations your way, and suddenly it gets difficult to manage everything again.
So is it important for kids to see the adults and role models around them as pillars of strength? Perhaps to an extent for the sake of their feelings of safety and security. But as an adult? While the first broken pedestal was a shock, I'm thankful for each pedestal in my life that has toppled. Putting the people around me on pedestals always leaves me feeling inferior and isolated. Breaking the pedestals allows me to surround myself with other perfectly imperfect people so that I have allies battling alongside me when life gets tough - and for that I will be forever grateful.