Laughing at my blunders

Isn’t it glorious?

The moment your mortification at your own mistake turns into sheer amusement

How could I do that? What was I thinking?

I can’t help but laugh at this point.

The tears turn into chuckles at first, then belly laughs.

When my 1996 Jeep Cherokee rammed headfirst into a tree, my 16-year-old self clutched the steering wheel and screamed. For weeks after the wreck, I told my friends, “I will never laugh at this!” 

Now I look back at that frazzled, insecure girl, so sensitive and overdramatic. It’s a painful combination that renders logic difficult, particularly during heightened emotional states. In reality, though, I eventually did learn to laugh at that experience. I’ve even been known to tease myself about it in my present day and age.

Because why not? Why not let ourselves laugh at our basic human mishaps? 

The other day I missed a session with a client. A huge YIKES. A professional blunder demonstrating lack of conscientiousness and a rude disregard for another person’s time. Really, though, it was simply an error of memory on my part.

I goofed. 

My computer is set on Eastern time to align with my company calendar, but I live in the Central time zone. I’m typically astute enough to convert the times each day, but for some reason, that day I read 2:00pm on my calendar as 2:00pm in my life, making me an hour late for the session.

I had a nightmare about it that night and woke up panting. It served as a reminder that the sensitive, overdramatic side of me will always exist (though its intensity has certainly subsided with time). 

Is it true that my subconscious mind puts too much pressure on myself to be perfect, a wholly unattainable goal? Probably. Don’t we all, to some degree, want to be, strive to be perfect? 

Of course we do. No one likes to be wrong, to make mistakes. Even when I make a mistake, I try to find the “lesson” in it. Why? To be better for the next time.

Is that the point of life? To continually learn and evolve and grow? 

Well, yes, probably…but why, I wonder? These existential questions continually plague me, as if I were the one wise soul put on this Earth to uncover the meaning of life. 

Perhaps one day I will finally learn to accept these conundrums as beyond my scope. And I will opt instead…to laugh.

Because why not?