Mistakes

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.  I ran that red light.  I fell off my bike three times in one summer.  I dated... too many wrong men to count. 

You know, they say if you don't learn from your mistakes you're doomed to repeat them.  And I think I am the poster child for that statement.  Didn't learn from the red light that almost killed me, ran another one and not only totalled my car, but got sued.  I wore the wrong shoes while riding my bike the first time... and the second time.  The third time, I was carrying a tote bag in the handle bars and when the bag got caught in the spokes... Well, I only did the one once, but it was in the same summer, so I'm counting it.  As for the men, the fact that I can't count them should account for the fact that it took me a really long time to learn from those mistakes.  (Hubs proves that I do eventually learn, but that was after 17 years worth of heartache, etc.)

Anyway, now I'm stuck in a rut where I rehash everything.  What could I have done differently to avoid making the same mistake in the future?  Well, I don't ride bikes anymore.  I am super viligent on the roads - especially at traffic signals.  And like I said, I fixed the dating mistakes by finding the right one and hanging onto him.

But I still wonder about past mistakes.  I know there's nothing I can do about them.  You can't change the past.  Maybe I'm hoping to change the future.  Maybe I'm looking for places where I've done something I can still rectify.  Perhaps I'm still looking for a way to fix the unfixable. 

Most days I'm pretty good about staying in the now and looking toward the future.  Some days I get stuck in a loop where I'm still rehashing a phone conversation I had years ago wondering where I went wrong, or I revisit a fight with someone I don't even know anymore to figure out what I could've said to end the fight on a different note, or I remember some parenting thing I did that finally years later I realize was probably the wrong way to have handled it.  (And then I apologize to the Kid who doesn't even remember what I did and who rightfully thinks I've slipped a gear.) 

:shrug:  It's a thing.  But I like to think I'm getting better. 

Although, next week, I'll probably be laying in bed wondering if this post was a mistake and whether I could've written it differently.  ;o)

(Don't even get me started on the nights I lay awake wondering if I started a story in the right place, ended it in the wrong place, or totally screwed up the plot.)