I make a lot of mistakes. I always have, for as long as I can remember. Worse, the kind of mistakes I make are sometimes not repairable. Some of them have changed the course of my life or the lives of others.
Here is a mild example. I swear in front of my children. This is a terrible, terrible habit and I try so hard not to do it. I don't mean to do it, and I honestly feel awful about it when it happens. Old habits die hard, and swearing is a habit I got into about twenty years ago when my strict, overly protective father forbade me to cuss. Using swear words at the age of fourteen and fifteen felt like the ultimate in rebellion, because I was a pretty naive kid. I didn't run around with 'bad' boys, break curfew or get into trouble with the law. But I did develop a mouth like a sailor, which in retrospect I can easily see was my whole-hearted attempt to break through to adulthood and become independent of my parents.
For a long time, swearing became so much a part of who I was I didn't even notice it. I never swore at work, of course, but out with girlfriends to see a show or get dinner I am sure I must have used the word "f&$k" millions of times just as an adjective. I honestly think it made me feel grown up. Most of my friends swore too, so I never felt out of place doing it.
Now that I am a mother, the swearing has taken on a much uglier guise. Every word that comes out of my mouth is a vocabulary lesson, and once my children are exposed to cuss words I can't take them back. I can't clean their ears or erase their memories... so now all of my children know the word s&#t, which is extremely horrifying. They are 5, 3 and 1, and their college educated stay-at-home mother has inadvertently taught them how to swear. No matter how many times I tell them that mommy shouldn't have used that bad word, it is out there. I try to ignore it when I hear them experimenting with the language, so that they won't develop the same sense of power with those words that I learned to feel. I try to say "Rats" and "Gosh Darn" when I drop heavy things on my foot or trip down a staircase. I've even set up a jar to drop pennies into every time I say a swear word so that I will show my kids how bad my behavior is and that I am actively "paying" for it and trying to change.
In the end though, this is just one of the millions of mistakes I make all of the time. Many of which I am so ashamed of.
I forget things, like appointments. I forget important things, like birthdays. I forget that I have loads of laundry in the washer and they end up needing to be washed all over again. I get so wrapped up in washing dishes that I don't always listen to my boys as they try to tell me stories. I manage to ignore the people I love most in the world, all because I am foolishly telling myself that it is important to have a clean house - even though the reality is that our house is never clean, no matter how much I clean it.
I say things that I don't mean and which sometimes can't be taken back. When I was in my early twenties I told my father in the middle of a heated argument that he was an old man and I wouldn't miss him when he was gone. Now he is dead, in a really hideous manner - because Alzheimer's is truly hideous - and I can't take back those words and tell him how much I loved him and how much I miss him every single day.
I get unreasonably angry and defensive. My sister once shared very well-intentioned criticism of the fact that I was moving in with my now-husband, while we were dating. I was so taken aback, I didn't speak to her for over two years or invite her to our wedding reception. Looking back, that was terribly immature. I could have accepted her views as being different than my own and chosen to hear only the love and good intention in her words. I didn't, and that was a huge mistake. (I'm just very lucky that she waited patiently for me to grow up a bit, and was generous about forgiving me when I finally did.)
Over a decade ago I lost the respect of a then-boyfriend that I had loved and lived with for years. I wrote some letter to him while he was traveling far away which neither of us saved. I cannot to this day remember exactly what it said but in essence I think it was a criticism of his lifestyle and some of the friends he was traveling with. I'm sure that letter was just the proverbial straw that broke his back, there must have been deeper problems underlying that I didn't know about - but not only did he not write or call me at all for the next five weeks, his first action upon returning home to our house was to break up with me. Much later I learned that while he was gone, he reconnected with an old home-town friend and they fell in love. I believe he is married to her today.
And while his love for this woman would surely have taken place whether or not I wrote that letter, because I believe that things like love are destined and you can't thwart fate's plans... I still wrote the letter. I sent it. I made that huge mistake (could have waited to speak with him in person, could have been less judgmental, could have accepted him for who he was) and spent years regretting it after. It was a huge mistake. That said, I thank God for that mistake now, because perhaps without it I might never have met my husband and had these three adorable, precious (unfortunately swear-word literate) children.
Still, I make so many mistakes.
I wish I could take them all back! I wish I could be the best of myself each and every day. My gut hurts just thinking about the times I have forgotten to wash my kid's clothes the night before school or my son's soccer shirt the night before a game. Spray n'Wash will go only so far! I wish I could take back all of the years of cumulative mistakes, because they have brought so much pain... most of all to me. I guess one could say that any wisdom I have today, I won the hard way.
The meaning of life for today's column is to keep showing up. Even with the worst mistakes. Even with the greatest feeling of failure and self-doubt. Even when you feel like you can never show your face again, you've messed up so badly. Keep showing up. Keep trying. Don't give up.
Some parents run away from their responsibilities and their children. Some husbands and wives give up on each other when money gets tight, health goes downhill or kids take the front seat. Some friends stop calling or reaching out when their close friends don't return a call or make contact for a while. Some employees quit their jobs when the work load gets too hard or they get a boss with whom they don't see eye-to-eye. Some people commit suicide when they feel like life's handed them a bum dance card.
It's easy to understand why people make these choices. All of us have been in that low place at some point, where we were so depressed or frustrated or defeated that we just wanted to walk away. I really get it. I've been there. Recently.
But if there is any one lesson that I hope my children will someday get out of reading this blog, it is that no matter how big of a mistake they could ever make, their dad and I love them anyway - no matter what. And I hope they will be brave enough to take responsibility for their actions and keep showing up for life, even if that means apologizing or humbling themselves in some way.
I have so much pride that it is very hard for me to admit when I have made a mistake, but I force myself to do it all the time. Tonight I asked my children with sincerity to forgive me for using a swear word in front of them - again - when I accidentally burned their dinner. I hate that I am teaching them by my example to make mistakes. I want to be their supermom. I guess for now I'm just their mom. I hope I will be able to teach them by my example to learn from mistakes.
Either way, I'll still be here in the morning. Trying again, and hoping optimistically for just one day with no mistakes in it.
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