Continuity: Season Seven's 10th episode, China.
It wasn't fair. She couldn't possibly be going through the same thing again. It seemed as if life had considered that letting her get her happy ending with the man she loved was enough reward for her efforts, deciding that she didn't need anything else. Granted, Jim and little Cece were the best things to ever happen to her, and for them she was endlessly thankful. But she owed something more to herself. Inside of her there was an urge to succeed that hadn't been satisfied; being good enough for her family was something she had promised herself she would be excellent at or either die trying - Jim and Cecelia each deserved a wonderful wife and mother. That couldn't count as an urge: that was mandatory.
Of course, she had had her dreams of working on her art, studying and perhaps getting an opportunity to make a living on it.
"Guess who just got into the Pratt School of Design."
But she had left the shiny New York City -however exciting, attractive and mesmerizing- when she'd been brought face to face with reality: continuing to pursue those dreams would have meant being away from him for longer than planned. She had thought, 'What if this takes forever? What if I have to stay for years here to become good?' , and given the fact that she had missed Jim terribly all throughout the months they had been apart, she hadn't even stopped to consider that option. She had come back, even when it had felt a lot like giving up on her art-related goals forever.
Then there had been that crazy, almost delusional rebellion/project called the Michael Scott Paper Company, something she had suddenly known she had to be a part of, and for which she had quit Dunder Mifflin, leaving everybody in awe.
"Come on! Are you, are you doing your best here? Are you being the best that you can be?"
That was when her little obsession with becoming a salesman had begun. (Being a receptionist -despite how used she had gotten to it- was something she had never particularly desired, and she had thought that maybe she could handle something else, harder and challenging.) After their company was absorbed by Dunder Mifflin, she had been the one to keep the sales position, while Ryan had gone back to being a temporary employee. She had kept that job since then, and mentally calling it a victory, she had felt good about herself. But then over time she had eventually realized she wasn't a salesman like her husband. She did okay, for sure, but she wasn't especially good. That had made her feel, once again, bitterly frustrated.
And now there was this. The "Office-Administrator." She knew she had taken things a little too far by inventing a building in an effort to threaten Dwight, but she had obviously gotten carried away. She had never meant to lie. As she tried to explain her actions and reasons to her husband, she felt somehow childishly ridiculous.
"I needed leverage so I pulled those pictures off the internet. It's just - this Office Administrator thing, I don't wanna..."
"What?"
"Fail." It felt as if the word resisted leaving her lips and abandoning its place, wrapped up in her fear. "I don't want to fail... again."
"But you didn't fail."
"That's what you said about Art School, and that's what you said about sales."
"And you didn't fail those things either."
She said the next sentences slowly because they were painful facts that she had been forced to get used to; day after day and night after night she had been obligated to deal with them despite how weak, pathetic and insignificant they could make her feel. "Well, I'm not an artist…"A small pause "…and I'm not a salesman."Another pause, and her voice sounded more and more like a sad whisper."So what would you call it?"
"Hey, hey, hey, hey…"
Pamela frowned, letting her husband envelop her tightly, protectively, and held back tears. He didn't have to give a big speech to let her know he disagreed and didn't consider her a failure in the slightest, but she just couldn't state for sure whether his love and reassurance would ever be enough to make go away forever her fear of failing. She still thought that for that feeling to disappear completely she would have to start a task and then it finish successfully, all by herself.
Little did she know that everything was not lost. Little did she know the end of the day was yet to bring her the victory she had been working towards. Little did she know that she had never been and would never be a failure.
