I Specialize in Bold Mistakes

This is dedicated to everyone who has struggled with standing up for themselves or felt unworthy or like they were never good enough. To you I say- you are good enough you are wonderful. If 'they' whomever they are, don't see that- then it is their loss. I see it. Thank you for being a shining star. 

You are valued and you need to know that it is not your fault. When people judge you or refuse to raise you up- those are people to avoid. To move away from. Because we all deserve a happy life. To everyone who has felt like this- I hope you have more good days, better days and optimism.

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I specialize in bold mistakes. Not because I make them frequently, but because I own them. I am an adventurer and I appreciate a skinned knee every now and then- it reminds me I am pushing myself. Pushing myself further away from the pessimism and unforgiving gaze of them.

Accidents are inevitable- but forcing someone to feel like that mistakes are all they make- is unforgivable. I must leave those accidents, those placed upon me, behind. There will always be rock-slides and upheaval- but of my making, of my living, I accept these, willingly. I have been trapped beneath the rubble of both, many times in my life. They have made that so. The guilt is sharp. Earth might be solid, sturdy and hardened in many parts of my life- but it is not fixed. The tectonics of experience are constantly sliding and maneuvering me about- that is the geology of life.

It is the preparation to ride the friction that matters most- feel the shake, meet the quake.

The color of my dreams, always seems to be the color of the haze, that follows me the next day. Vibrant or dull. Dark or bright. I walk about in a fog of discomfort some days not knowing why. I am not unhappy necessarily- but there is a lag in my mindfulness as of late. It is a conundrum: feeling free of the control but also missing it. A lifetime of it- means it is engrained, like sediment compacting and cementing into me. It is my unavoidable foundation and hard to dismantle.

It’s much more complicated than that though. There is a strata of disappointment that weighs heavy on me. Years of someone else’s words taunt me- telling me I am not good enough, that I am a disappointment. At least in their eyes. Divorced from a family I thought loved me. Anxiety vibrates, shifting- with my allowance of hateful speech, words, to enter my boundaries. It stings like the gas spewing of a violent volcano. Choking and suffocating me at inopportune moments.

Gaslighting is what some call it.

It melts my sturdy frame into a molten swirl of magma. I feel trapped sometimes, depressed sometimes, anxious and betrayed all the time. Like what I am attempting to achieve far away from the abandoned broken, stained, cobble stone streets of my past, is fruitless. I am a state away- yet the burn and singe still reaches my spirit. The howls of anger and resentment followed me- to this new mountainous terrain.

It rumbles when I am silent and focused. It shrieks and bellows at my happiness- dragging me back down into the mantle of their design. I have to metamorphosize- alter my fragile sediment into crystals and minerals both shiny and beautiful and leave behind the fragments of negativity. But it proves challenging. It proves to be a struggle most days- although I smile and keep buggering on. It still hurts. So, I bury it deep, hoping the heat and pressure of progress will transform me.

The exhaustion- fatigue- aches and worry, they boom loud. So, to circumvent the convection of doubt and fear I send- a piece offering to extinguish any gloom for my own arrival of another year lived. But it backfires, it bubbles and gurgles- tearing apart any hope of reconciliation and reformation. Words are spoken mechanically, diligently to be harsh- mean, hurtful. They know how to erupt and decimate- and I delete the barrage, but the words reverberate. Hardening into igneous matter- closing any fissure of hope.

I can’t find it in my heart to hate or dislike. It feels like a waste of time. But I need to let go of any hope of forgiveness. For this, like a fault - runs deep. Decades deep. It is scar tissue on this earthly plain. But it is at sea level, and I have climbed a mile- into the clouds of the mountainous. I have ventured far away from the negative.

I must smash the obsidian bridge I left erected out of expectation of compromise. I must let it melt into the lava and sink below into the magma- to be reformed into something new- a memory of good times. Not a regret of something I did- but simply an experience- an Earthquake, a volcanic event- that pushed me to a new location.

Family, like strata is a sequence- a layered part of our life- full of fossils and imprints of our childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. It is thick with the tumultuous weathering and erosion of our upbringing. Speckled with successes and failures. Mistakes and adversity. Family is permanent in our spirits- whether it cooled slowly or fast- it is a part of our structure. Its marks are permanent.

We may try to completely leave it behind, but it still deposits memories wherever we go. They stick to us making us who we are. They shape us: digging canyons, eroding valleys, converging our plains into plateaus. So, no matter how destructive their forces may be and how much we push back- they forge ahead. They create chasms we can’t escape. So, we have to construct, pile, and protect from their effects. Moving on - is sometimes the firm escape, the necessary route.

I love deeply. I do not understand their point of view. But it is not my job to do so. My adventure is my profession. My life is my own. My choices are my own. I make bold mistakes and I own them. Choosing happiness- choosing to be near those who love me unconditionally is not one of my mistakes. It is one of my triumphs.

I shy away from confrontation. Leaving the negative is my coping mechanism. Turning to silent mode, my refuge. This is my escape plan. My adventure. The dirty, smog may corrode some days. The acidity of judgment may sting and cause me anxiety and sadness, but it is temporary. There is always mountain air on the horizon. I’m on top of the world- I paid my dues to the dirt, the sediment, the strata. I am above the canyon now and can clearly see the years behind me.

And now…. Like all cycles…

My conversion is underway. My transformation has begun. Haze is swirling, dark and gloomy- but it is dissipating – the volcanic ash has settled, and clear skies are ahead. Sunny skies drying out the muck. The warmth of the mountain air is fresh and for the first time in my life- I am breathing in crisp, regenerative nourishment and the pollution is starting to fade.

The gaslight is flickering.

And my interior is beginning to match my exterior. Hardened not by regret or sadness but by experience that has led me here. Reflection that has driven me here.

A rock, I am, once bits and pieces of a doubt and low self-esteem, guilt, and judgement. Carrying a burden. I am now free to metamorphize and transform into something new, something unique, something that is alright with bold mistakes- because that is who she is.