I Made a Mistake

I know it’s part of the human condition. I’m not a fan.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

I’ve made mistakes. There. I’ve said it. Written it down. Put it out there.

And you may be thinking, “Duh.”

Ridiculous declaration? Probably. But, I have a funny relationship with mistakes and mishaps, and downright wrong decisions. I understand, conceptually, that we humans make them. But I revisit mine like a reminder I’m supposed to always remember them. I’m not supposed to set them down. I am to stay shackled to my mistakes. And I’m not entirely sure why.

Years ago, when I was in elementary school, my godfather showed me a paragraph out of a book or newsletter or something and challenged me to look for the grammatical error in it. He said something like, “You’re smart. Can you find it?” I couldn’t. In the middle of all the sentences, there was the word “it’s,” and the word should have been “its,” no apostrophe.

No apostrophe.

And here I am decades later not only able to recount this interaction, but I remember it as a way to remind myself that mistakes are not acceptable.

My mistakes poke at me from time to time, like quick jabs from a hot poker or an electrical current. I had a jolt just a minute ago and the sharp stab sparks anxiety that causes me to exclaim audibly. Sometimes I groan or I shout, “Mandy!” A memory will streak across my mind; maybe I wrote the title of a book wrong or one of the assignments in my syllabus isn’t delineated clearly or I cried at a PTA meeting. (That one was from years ago but you can bet I hold onto it and it rears up from time to time.)

For years and years, people close to me, and some not so close to me, have said I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. And I have often wondered, how does one go about this? I’m testing a new theory.

Maybe if I am more explicit with the experience, I could better understand why it is that my inner world is so harsh, particularly when it comes to mistakes.

I can intellectually understand the concept of imperfect humans, even if I can’t internalize it. But what I don’t understand is why some people can seemingly release those mistakes from their selves and some of us can’t.

Friends, I may have an answer. An answer that isn’t mine, but Brene Brown’s, whose writings and theories and research have worked their way deep into my psyche and I really hope are beginning some healing transformation.

To know her is to know her work around shame and worthiness. Shame says I am bad and not worthy of love and belonging (vs. guilt, which says what I have DONE is bad, but I’m still worthy of love and belonging.).

Those electrical shocks that remind me of mistakes are jolts of shame. And if you know shame as I do, it makes sense to groan or yell out when it stabs you.

I don’t live in a constant state of shame but there are times when I seem to be moving beyond it and shame sucker punches me when I’m not paying attention and for a moment I’m doubled over, waiting for the shock to subside. Shame keeps me remembering that “its,” possessive does not have an apostrophe (like “your” is possessive vs. “you’re,” which is “you are”. It’s a thing. You’re welcome.)

I have felt so crazy and alone in this experience, my shame compounded by the fact that I couldn’t “just stop being so hard in myself.”

Mama Brown has a book, “The Gift of Imperfection”, which taunts me when I walk past my bookshelves. What seems like an oxymoron, gift-imperfection, is a reality I would like to better understand and celebrate.

I write this because I have a hunch I’m not alone. I don’t know how to be freed from this just yet. But I’m hopeful that I’m getting close. To the freedom.