Learning from Past "Mistakes"

"I just thought that with your last failure, you'd think twice about jumping so quickly into this."

You know how sometimes you respond diplomatically and quickly brush aside an insensitive comment only to come back to it hours later and think, "Ew! What the hell was that about!?" Well that's how I felt on Wednesday after my mom threw this little dagger at me over the phone. Sometimes she can be a bit tactless and I often forget that her own experiences taint the advice she gives. For nine years she's blanketed herself with the divorce, refusing to let go of bitter feelings and move on. I forget that her world is darkened with pain and fear and no matter how much time passes, she will always have a hard time opening her heart. There's also the possibility that she wants to protect her daughter from hurting again.

But my response to her then still holds true two days later: There are some people you feel comfortable with sooner than with others. I'm not going to think about what happened or what might happen in the future. That's what went wrong the last time. I can only go by how I feel...and right now I'm just happy.

All that time I took for myself would have been for naught if I behaved the same way I did two years ago. The break-up in and of itself would've been pointless if I hadn't done what it was intended to do: force me to change, trust, smile, accept love, give it in return and perhaps find happiness with someone else. So if that "failed" experience is what's pushing me to become a little more fearless now, was it really such a failure? I don't think so.

Image: flickr.com